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A Frenchman suspected of involvement in a wave of attacks against speed cameras near Paris had both hands blown off this morning when his home-made bomb exploded in his flat. Police said his condition was critical. Interior minister Michèle Alliot-Marie said “multiple clues” pointed to the 41-year old postal worker being linked to the Nationalist Revolutionary Army Faction (Fnar), a shadowy “guerrilla” group which has claimed responsibility for destroying dozens of speed traps. Investigators say the man exclaimed: “I am from the Fnar” when firemen arrived at his flat in Clichy-La-Garenne, west of Paris.

PARIS When Michèle Alliot-Marie was named France's defense minister three years ago, she was so surprised and unprepared that she had to ask her partner to teach her to march. He taught her in their living room. Since then, marching has become second nature to Alliot-Marie, and she has become one of Europe's most vocal defenders of an independent defense arm for the European Union. On Wednesday, Alliot-Marie, 58, took her message to an international symposium here on the future of European defense. Her message: Europeans need to increase military spending by billions of euros a year to be competitive...

The capture of Osama bin Laden, head of the Al-Qaeda network, remains a major United States aim, but will not be enough to end worldwide Islamic "terrorism," say politicians and specialists. Bin Laden has escaped his pursuers for years without losing his ability to maintain a high profile, remain on the world stage, and launch fatwas. To his supporters and sympathisers he has become a symbol, the very incarnation of an ideology that will survive his capture or death. "We must not suppose that the day we catch bin Laden will mean the disappearance of terrorism," said French Defence Minister...

French troops 'find bin Laden site' FRENCH troops had recently helped track down an area in Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden might have hidden out, France's defence minister said in an interview published today. Michele Alliot-Marie did give specifics on where the location was or whether the fugitive al-Qaeda chief was believed to have remained there. It was also unclear how large of an area she was talking about. "Our men are well-established and know the terrain well," Alliot-Marie was quoted as telling L'Express news magazine. "Thanks to certain information, they in fact recently helped contribute to locating him." Asked...

PARIS (Reuters) - International forces recently found a location where fugitive al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is thought to have taken refuge, according to French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie. She said in an interview to be published Tuesday that French troops operating near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan had helped trace bin Laden but did not say where, how wide an area she was referring to or whether he was still there. A ministry spokesman said Alliot-Marie was referring to the discovery of a location where bin Laden was believed to have been "at a certain time" and it was...

Bush keeps France waiting over D-Day commemoration By Kim Willsher in Paris (Filed: 15/02/2004) The official invitation has been lying in his in-tray for several months, but President George W. Bush has failed to let the French know whether he will attend the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings in June. France's president, Jacques Chirac, is expecting at least 15 heads of state to be present at the commemorations marking the decisive Allied offensive against the Germans in Normandy on June 5, 6 and 7. British guests will include the Queen, the Prince of Wales and Tony Blair, all of...

France to muscle defense capacities with 2nd aircraft carrier France announced Friday that it will build a second aircraft carrier using conventional propulsion to reinforce its nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle by 2015. "This development is particularly significant in the anniversary year of the Entente Cordiale and will contribute to the strengthening of both Europe's defense capabilities and Franco-British military cooperation," said French President Jacques Chirac when announcing the decision. Entente Cordiale was a pact that France and Britain signed 100 years ago to form a military alliance in World Wars I and II. Earlier in the day, Chirac's office said...

FRANCE wants to help Iraq train a new army and its police forces despite initial opposition to the US-led war. French defence minister Michele Alliot-Marie replied "yes" when asked by newspaper Le Monde whether France might offer military cooperation to the planned provisional Iraqi government to assume power by July 1. "We could only envisage intervening at the request of such a government and in a framework of the United Nations," the defence minister was quoted as saying. "This government should be installed starting from July 1 and thus it is from this date that we envisage our participation in...

“Renewing the Transatlantic Security Partnership”CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) Friday, January 16, 2004 Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, I’m very pleased to be here at the CSIS today. As you know, I enjoy my visits to the U.S. and I am honored to be with such a brilliant gathering of experts on international and strategic questions. After my meetings in Washington, I shall be leaving tomorrow for New York to discuss several current dossiers with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. I wanted to be with you this morning to talk about the transatlantic partnership. 1. The state of the...

Drugs now are the principal source of funding for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said. Afghanistan's record opium poppy crop, from which most of Europe's heroin supply is derived, is fueling a resurgent Taliban and al-Qaeda, she said. This situation, said the French minister, requires a "more muscular approach to eradication and to the surveillance of banking networks." The exchange of intelligence in real time is working "extremely well," she explained, "but it must be constantly reinforced." Afghan drug production now is estimated to be contributing between $1 billion and $2 billion to warlords and...

<p>French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said yesterday that "certain radical neoconservative ideas" are driving a wedge between Europe and the United States at a time when the trans-Atlantic alliance must be strengthened in the face of common threats.</p> <p>In remarks at the end of a two-day fence-mending visit to Washington, Mrs. Alliot-Marie conceded that 2003 was a difficult time for Franco-American relations, but said Paris had been unfairly "stigmatized" as a "strategic adversary of the United States."</p>

PARIS, Jan. 15 -- French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, who arrived in Washington Thursday on a mission to mend France's tattered military relations with the United States, said before her departure that the two countries have wide-ranging cooperation and should not "let the trees hide the forest." "It's true that we had a disagreement with the United States over Iraq," she said in written answers to questions submitted by The Washington Post. Referring to the invasion, she said: "We sincerely thought that it was not the best way. But that represents such a tiny part of our overall relationship. It...