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CHICAGO, (AP) -- French officials are refusing to extradite an American suspected of killing a dermatologist last year because he recently became a French citizen, prosecutors said. Hans Peterson, 29, turned himself in to French authorities Aug. 6 on the Caribbean island of St. Martin after an arrest warrant was issued for him in Chicago. He is accused of fatally stabbing Dr. David Cornbleet in the dermatologist's downtown Chicago office in October. Peterson, a U.S. citizen whose mother is French, obtained French citizenship in May while living on St. Martin, the Chicago Tribune reported. Peterson is being held in French-controlled...

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France -- Police deployed 4,000 reinforcements as marauding youths torched at least two public buses Friday, the anniversary of the deaths of two teenagers that ignited weeks of riots in largely immigrant housing projects across France. After the buses were burned, Paris' transport authority curtailed bus service in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of the capital, which is home to thousands of immigrants and their French-born children. Thierre Ange, a 19-year-old witness, said four men attacked the bus, "made everyone get off, then they hit a woman and dragged out the bus driver by his tie" and torched the bus...

PARIS, France -- Mixing rap music with memories of France's revolutionary past, youths from poor neighborhoods of largely Muslim and African descent marched through Paris on Wednesday to present a collection of 20,000 complaints to lawmakers. The march by several hundred people came ahead of Friday's first anniversary of the riots involving disaffected youths from immigrant Parisian suburbs. Many in France fear new violence, with tensions rising in recent weeks. "The context is still the same, nothing has changed. So the situation is propitious for other events like last year," said Samir Mihi, co-founder of the AC-Le Feu group that...

The United States tried Tuesday to salvage its plan to punish Iran with sanctions if it does not back down in a nuclear standoff with the West, even as President George W. Bush told Iranians he hopes that one day "America and Iran can be good friends." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice convened nations that have offered Iran a bargain to head off what the United States and others fear is a drive to build a nuclear bomb. The United States had hoped to use the gathering to move decisively toward political and economic sanctions on Iran now that it...

PARIS -- "We are all Americans," France's Le Monde newspaper proclaimed on Sept. 12, 2001, speaking for millions worldwide in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States. Five years later, the respected daily carried a very different message Monday: Its lead editorial was titled "Bush's Mistakes." The paper's assessment five years ago reflected a collective shock and sympathy felt in France and many nations that has given way to a much more complex view of the United States since then, particularly after the war in Iraq. In its issue Monday, Le Monde called the war in Afghanistan...

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France - Six months after France's housing projects blew up in riots and awakened the nation to an ugly reality, promises and gestures have piled up. But so far, according to those meant to benefit from this new deal, there's little sign of change, and the danger of a new outbreak of rioting is real. "Calm has returned but it's a precarious calm. The smallest spark risks an explosion," said Samir Mihi, who runs a sports program for youths and acted as an informal mediator during the unrest. "We live in fear of a new October 27," he said,...

PARIS, France -- The European Union has often struggled to persuade governments to look beyond narrow national interests, as it inches toward its goal of becoming a vast free market. But now an unabashedly populist ideal is taking root among governments: economic patriotism. A series of government moves to block foreign takeovers is fueling concern that a surge in protectionism could threaten the EU's economic progress, just when competition from Asia is making liberalization more urgent than ever. Several countries have intervened recently to protect their corporate "champions" from rivals in other European Union states. Coming less than a year...

SEE HOW low the mighty have fallen. In France, more than a million students have demonstrated in the streets, riots have erupted and strikers have shut down public-transportation systems throughout the country. Now Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who worked so hard to undercut President Bush's popularity before the Iraq war, has reaped the same unhappy job approval rating -- 37 percent, according to Le Journal du Dimanche -- as Dubya. Sadly, de Villepin is in trouble because he is doing the right thing for his country. Last November, prolonged rioting by largely unemployed Muslim and Arab youth served as...

PARIS -- French unions and student groups on Monday called a national day of strikes for March 28 to protest a youth jobs plan that has already provoked massive street demonstrations and paralyzed many universities. Labor unions had set a Monday evening deadline for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to withdraw the jobs plan or face a possible general strike — but he showed few signs of backing down. At a meeting with student groups, Villepin simply urged more dialogue. "There are problems and worries being expressed," Villepin said after the meeting, which was boycotted by the largest student group,...

PARIS -- Police loosed water cannons and tear gas on rioting students and activists rampaged through a McDonald's and attacked store fronts in the capital Saturday as demonstrations against a plan to relax job protections spread in a widening arc across France. The protests, which drew some 500,000 people in cities across the country, were the biggest show yet of escalating anger that is testing the strength of the conservative government before elections next year. In Paris, seven officers and 17 protesters were injured during two melees at the close of the march, at the Place de la Nation in...

French President Jacques Chirac said Tuesday that it would be a "grave error" for Iran and North Korea to ignore the international community's repeated warnings and press forward with contested nuclear programs. Chirac, in a broad address laying out French foreign policy objectives for 2006, said the world must ensure that agreements on nuclear proliferation are not trampled on. "Everyone recognizes that Iran or North Korea, for example, have a right to peacefully use nuclear energy," Chirac said. "But it is imperative for the international community to ensure that the commitments reached for everyone's security are respected." Iran and North...

PARIS - The unrest buffeting France has further undermined the already weakened presidency of Jacques Chirac, but he is far from alone on a continent with pressing problems and few strong leaders to tackle them. Britain, Germany and Italy also have troubled governments, leaving the European Union in limbo as the Bush administration increasingly shows interest in a cohesive Europe to help with difficult diplomatic tasks in the Middle East and elsewhere. "The whole Western world lacks leadership at the moment," said Guillaume Parmentier, director of the French Center on the United States. "I cannot see any leader who can...

BOBIGNY, France -- "It wasn't me!" the 22-year-old insisted at his trial, three days after he was arrested during France's wave of rioting. The magistrate has heard the story countless times. The youths being rushed through the heavily guarded courtroom in the northeastern Paris suburb of Bobigny faced charges of vandalism or carrying explosive devices — usually homemade gasoline bombs. Almost all said they were guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Human rights groups fear fast-track trials like the ones held in Bobigny this week could fuel a sense of injustice among the defendants,...

You can choose your friends but not your family. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan escaped charges of corruption in a report on the Iraqi oil-for-food program released on Wednesday, but evidence was presented that his son Kojo brandished his father's name to avoid paying taxes on a luxury car and lied repeatedly while under investigation. Kofi Annan said the report was "deeply embarrassing." One of the most embarrassing points for the soft-spoken Nobel Peace Prize winner from Ghana must be the role of his own son. Kojo Annan, now 31, was a consultant for the Swiss firm Cotecna S.A. that won...

LONDON -- Mia Farrow has defended film director Roman Polanski in his libel trial, denying a claim by Vanity Fair magazine that he tried to seduce a woman days after his wife's brutal murder. Polanski is suing Conde Nast, the magazine's publisher, over a 2002 article that said he seduced a woman at a New York City restaurant while on his way to the funeral of his wife, Sharon Tate. Tate, who was pregnant, was killed by followers of serial killer Charles Manson in Los Angeles in August 1969. Farrow, 60, starred in Polanski's 1968 film, "Rosemary's Baby." She testified...

THE Mayor of Paris last night accused London of using “corruption” to win the 2012 Olympics. Bitter Bertrand Delanoe claimed that Tony Blair and bid leader Lord Coe had “crossed the line” in campaigning.And he vowed to fight to prove that the French capital has the “moral right” to stage the games.In a shameless display of sour grapes, Delanoe said: “They have not respected the rules established by the International Olympic Committee.“I’m not saying they came close to crossing the line — they crossed the line completely.“The victory was won by means other than Olympic ones. We made a choice,...

Tunku Varadarajan wrote a delightful piece in the Wall Street Journal, "Why are Brits skinflint hosts?" He told of having to wangle ice cubes for his drink from a British bartender at a party. "One answer to why the British are such poor hosts might be found in wartime austerity and the postwar rationing that forced Britons of every class to think that skimpery was smart," Varadarajan said. Oh, that. His column came to mind when I read British press reports about Jacques Chirac entertaining Gerhard Schroeder and Vladimir Putin with jokes about British cuisine. They were in Scotland for...

Time is running out for Jan Ullrich. For the past six years, the German cyclist has been the foil of Lance Armstrong, finishing second to the Texan three times and fourth once on his sport's grandest stage, the Tour de France. As Ullrich sees it, this is his last great chance, not to win the Tour for a second time -- at 31 he still has a couple more good racing years left in his legs -- but to get the better of his nemesis Armstrong, who plans to retire from professional cycling on July 24, the day the three-week-long...

WASHINGTON - Now the real trouble begins as the case of Zacarias Moussaoui hurtles toward a conclusion and the life of the admitted terrorist conspirator hangs in the balance. Next comes the penalty phase in the criminal prosecution of the 36-year-old French citizen, who says the endgame of his flight training for 747 airliners was a strike on the White House, separate from the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. As chilling as Moussaoui's admissions are, international hostility to executions and the need for cooperation in President Bush's fight against terrorism raise an intriguing question: Does the Bush administration really want...

BERLIN -- The presidents of France and Russia, top opponents of U.S. policy in Iraq, joined world leaders Monday in praising this weekend's landmark Iraqi elections as a success of democracy over terrorism, but the welcome was tempered by concern that Sunni Arabs be included in a future government. French President Jacques Chirac spoke with President Bush by telephone, saying he was satisfied by the "participation rate and the good technical organization." "These elections mark an important step in the political reconstruction of Iraq. The strategy of terrorist groups has partly failed," Chirac said, according to a French presidential spokesman....