Nicolas Sarkozy warned French voters Thursday they should re-elect him as president to pursue his cost-cutting plans or face the kind of debt crises that have gripped Greece and Spain.
In his memoirs, former UK Defence Secretary Sir John Nott describes France as Britain's greatest ally during the Falklands War. However, formerly secret papers and other evidence seen by the BBC show that was not the full story. Before the war, France sold Argentina's military junta five Exocet missiles.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has agreed with other conservative European leaders to help President Nicolas Sarkozy in the French election campaign by spurning his Socialist challenger François Hollande, according to the German media Spiegel.
Official French documents will no longer force women to reveal their marital status by requiring them to choose the title Mademoiselle or Madame.
President Nicolas Sarkozy formally declared his candidacy for a second term on Wednesday seeking to overturn a wide poll lag with promises to get the unemployed back to work and use referendums to consult the French people on reforms.
French Defence minister Gerard Longuet said that following on the deal to sell 126 Dassault Rafale fighter jets to India, Paris is hopeful it can seal a similar contract with Brazil.
Stock markets and the Euro traded lower Friday as Greek debt swap talks were put on hold and France’s Finance minister confirmed that Standard & Poor’s has downgraded the country’s credit rating.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy have said they will meet next week to discuss the Euro zone debt crisis. Their first meeting of 2012 comes after all EU countries except the UK agreed to work together on a new treaty to stabilise the Euro zone.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged in a grave New Year's message to find ways to pull the economy out of stagnation in the four months left before a presidential election and vowed no further public spending cuts.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said his country is likely to face new jolts from the Euro zone debt crisis amid rumors it could lose its triple-A credit rating.