http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/france/ en-us Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:52:35 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2050867/posts Safety Group Urges Airbus Fixes LOS ANGELES -- U.S. aviation safety watchdogs, concerned about severe electrical problems that have blacked out cockpit displays on dozens of Airbus jetliners over the years, urged regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to mandate aircraft fixes and enhanced pilot training to alleviate such hazards. Recommendations released by the National Transportation Safety Board Wednesday cite 49 incidents over the years in which electrical problems caused various cockpit displays on widely-used Airbus A319 and A320 to suddenly stop functioning and temporarily go blank during flight. According to the board, seven of those incidents resulted in... The Wall Street Journal http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2050867/posts#comment Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:52:35 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2050382/posts MPs scrap France's 35-hour week Mr Sarkozy said the 35-hour week hampered France's competitiveness France's parliament has passed a law which effectively ends the country's compulsory 35-hour working week.The new law will allow companies to strike individual deals with unions on working hours and overtime. Since coming into office last year, President Nicolas Sarkozy has blamed the 35-hour week for damaging France's economic competitiveness. Introduced 10 years ago by the then Socialist government, polls show most French still support the 35-hour week. The new measures are expected to come into force at the end of August. "Companies will at... BBC http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2050382/posts#comment Thu, 24 Jul 2008 05:02:13 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2050348/posts 080722-N-7571S-001 ATLANTIC OCEAN (July 22, 2008) A French F-2 Rafale launches from the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) during the first integrated U.S. and French carrier qualifications aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier. The Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group is participating in Joint Task Force Exercise "Operation Brimstone" off the Atlantic coast. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jonathan Snyder/Released) 080721-N-7241L-009 ATLANTIC OCEAN (July 21, 2008) A French Rafale M prepares to land aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) during combined French and American carrier qualifications. This event marks the first... United States Navy http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2050348/posts#comment Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:38:38 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2049888/posts Bwaaa Haaa Haaa Haaa Haaa!!!I love this stage!At least it's not steep. LeTour http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2049888/posts#comment Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:38:41 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2049299/posts LeTour http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2049299/posts#comment Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:30:31 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2049259/posts French nuclear firm Areva has found a uranium leak at a factory in southeastern France, but there is no danger to the environment, the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) said on Friday. The news came a day after the government ordered safety tests at all the country's 19 nuclear power plants following another leak at an Areva facility earlier this month. However, Energy and Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo moved to reassure the public over the latest incident. "We mustn't over-exaggerate," he told reporters, saying there were 115 such "little anomalies" in France's nuclear industry each year. "This is something which... planet ark http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2049259/posts#comment Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:57:51 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2049167/posts when the sweeping changes that he insists will curb his powers and reinvigorate parliament were passed by a single vote Deputies and senators from both houses of parliament gasped when the outcome was announced at the gilded chateau of Versailles, with 539 votes for and 357 against the constitutional bill, which required a three-fifths majority to go through. Only one opposition Socialist voted in favour of the reform - the former culture minister, Jacques Lang, whose support proved decisive. Mr Sarkozy said he was "delighted" by the vote. "It is democracy that has won," said the President on his way... The Telegraph http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2049167/posts#comment Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:52:26 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2048666/posts The street market in Saint-Denis is only a few minutes from the Champs Elysees by metro, but it feels more like north Africa than a northern suburb of Paris. A market at St-Denis Not a million miles away - the multicultural Paris suburb of St-Denis Amid a crowd of shoppers, almost all of Arab or African origin, a man in a white robe collects money for a mosque in the nearby suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois - one of the immigrant areas where youths burned cars and battled police during unrest in 2005. Arab music blares from a music stall. Next to... BBC NEWS http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2048666/posts#comment Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:01:57 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2048667/posts Flamanville, Normandy, northern France.Construction at Flamanville nuclear site Rounding the coast road, as blue-green breakers crash against the dark beaches, you can see a vast building site. It perches on the edge of the sea, on top of old industry, for here there used to be a granite mine and and an undersea iron mine. A few hundred yards out to sea there is a paler expanse of water in the shape of a flattened oval, while overhead scores of gulls hover and swoop on some tasty morsel below. The site itself resounds with clatters and bangs, men in hard... BBC NEWS http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2048667/posts#comment Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:03:55 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2048306/posts ♦ RACE PREVIEW ♦Ciao Italia! Tour organizers were forced to get out their atlases & scramble to come up with a detour when the original route they had planned for today out of Digne-les-Bains over the Col de Larche was deemed too risky for the riders after a recent avalanche created the hazard of ongoing rockslides. So this morning's starting line has been moved north to the charming town of Embrun, considered by many to be an architectural gem, perched on the shores of lovely Lac de Serre-Ponçon. The good news for the riders is that the revised route for... letour.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2048306/posts#comment Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:41:37 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2048220/posts A depot in France from which a large quantity of powerful explosive went missing was poorly guarded, the regional head of security has said. The storage of 28kg (61lb) of Semtex at the site near Lyon was "not usual and certainly not authorised", Xavier de Fuerst also told the AFP news agency. A search by anti-terrorist officers is under way, and the manager of the site has been suspended pending an inquiry. Semtex is favoured by terrorists as it is odourless and difficult to detect. bbc.co.uk http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2048220/posts#comment Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:27:54 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2048187/posts (ANSAmed) - PARIS, JULY 17 - A "luminous and liberated" veil, in the spirit of Islam's poetics, will cover but not hide, thanks to a light transparent structure, the Visconti Court of the Louvre Museum in Paris, in the right wing, to host the new museum of Islamic arts, to be established in 2010. ¿It is a political museum¿, as explained to ANSA by Rudy Ricciotti, of Italian origins, one of the two architects, with Mario Bellini from Milan, who designed the project, selected among 52 applicants. "In the sense that it recognises all the peoples in a lay state,... ANSA http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2048187/posts#comment Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:36:33 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2048055/posts French anti-terrorist officers are searching for 28 kilograms of Semtex explosive missing from a depot in the suburbs of the city of Lyon. Semtex is a powerful, odourless explosive which is difficult to detect and often used by terrorist groups. The theft was from a depot in a disused 19th century fort at Corbas in the southern suburbs of Lyon. The depot is used for storing explosives by a civil defence unit with the job of blowing up bombs and ammunition left over from the two world wars. Twenty-eight kilograms of Semtex was found to be missing in a routine... ABC News AU http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2048055/posts#comment Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:56:03 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2047972/posts France offers India partnership to export submarines Sandeep Dikshit NEW DELHI: France has offered India a partnership to export hi-tech submarines to third countries. “Our strategy is not only to be in India for developing products for India but to develop for others because we think that a submarine is a strategic defence system which a lot of navies are interested in developing,” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DCNS Jean-Marie Poimbeuf told The Hindu. Submarines are counted as among the most potent defence platforms as they can operate undetected far beyond a country’s shores. The DCNS, 75 per cent... The Hindu http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2047972/posts#comment Sat, 19 Jul 2008 13:03:26 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2040058/posts Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S.... Previous Thread http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2040058/posts#comment Thu, 3 Jul 2008 02:02:59 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2047815/posts PARIS, France (CNN) -- Explosives used to destroy land mines have disappeared from a site near Lyon, France, the French Interior Ministry said Friday. About 62 pounds (28 kilograms) of explosives were stolen from a depot at the civil security site at Fort de Corbas, the ministry said in a written statement, because of an apparent breach in the site's protection. Michele Alliot-Marie, France's minister of the interior, immediately suspended the head of the security center and started an investigation. French anti-terrorism authorities and the Lyon police also are participating in the investigation, the statement CNN http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2047815/posts#comment Sat, 19 Jul 2008 01:04:09 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2047797/posts <p>The "polemania" that overtook Hollywood, Australia and Japan a decade ago has grabbed France, where pole-dancing schools say they turn away clients eager to learn routines once the preserve of strip clubs and girlie bars.</p> <p>"It's sensual, not sexy, we leave eroticism in the changing room", said Violetta Carpentier, 31.</p> AFP via Google http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2047797/posts#comment Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:22:19 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2047748/posts EVEN if you couldn’t be on the Champs-Élysées for Bastille Day on Monday to watch seven parachutists float down in front of President Nicolas Sarkozy, you can still celebrate the greatness of France with a new local tradition. Eat a hamburger. Beginning a few years ago but picking up momentum in the past nine months, hamburgers and cheeseburgers have invaded the city. Anywhere tourists are likely to go this summer — in St.-Germain cafes, in fashion-world hangouts, even in restaurants run by three-star chefs — they are likely to find a juicy beef patty, almost invariably on a sesame seed... NYT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2047748/posts#comment Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:51:07 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2047695/posts LYON (AFP) - La disparition de 28 kilos d'un puissant explosif, vraisemblablement du Semtex, a été constatée dans un centre de déminage de la banlieue de Lyon, un vol que le ministre de l'Intérieur, Michèle Alliot-Marie, a imputé à des "défaillances dans la sécurisation du site". LYON (AFP) - the disappearance of 28 kilos a powerful explosive, probably Semtex, was noted in a center of mine clearance of the suburbs of Lyon, a flight that the Michele Al, Minister of Interior Department, charged to failures in the security of the site. Yahoo News (French) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2047695/posts#comment Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:25:50 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2047360/posts A Muslim member of the French Government has attacked the head-to-toe Islamic dress as a prison, applauding a court decision to deny citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wore it. “The burka is a prison, a strait-jacket,” Fadela Amara, the Minister for Urban Affairs and a longstanding women's rights campaigner, said yesterday. “It is not religious. It is the insignia of a totalitarian political project for sexual inequality.” The court decision denying Faiza Mabchour, 32, French citizenship has drawn approval from both Left and Right, highlighting a rejection of Muslim customs that conflict with the values of the secular French... The Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2047360/posts#comment Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:40:23 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2046720/posts President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has been accused of wanting to turn the country into a "monocracy" as he scrambles to win last-minute backing for a constitutional reform bill, which he argues will strengthen parliament. The opposition Socialist party is calling for a No vote on the bill, which has split the ruling UMP party, and it is uncertain whether Mr Sarkozy can secure the required three-fifths majority in the upper and lower houses of parliament to push it through. Its rejection would be a major blow for the president. "I hope that those Socialists who are sincere will understand... The Telegraph http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2046720/posts#comment Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:55:11 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2046684/posts Paris in the month of May was in full aphrodisiac bloom. The girls were swinging along the boulevards in their short, flowery skirts, their hair flowing loose behind them. On the radio, the singer Tino Rossi - France's answer to Rudolph Valentino - belted out his latest romantic favourite. But a few short weeks later, on June, 14, 1940, the German army marched into the capital and occupied it for four years. France has never forgotten its humiliation - or its bewilderment - in having to adjust to a life of close proximity to the old enemy, with all the... The Daily Mail http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2046684/posts#comment Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:32:06 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2046561/posts PARIS (AFP) — French President Nicolas Sarkozy praised Islam on Wednesday at a ceremony with Saudi Prince Al Walid bin Talal to lay the first stone for a new Islamic art section of the Louvre museum. "This will be an opportunity for the French and all visitors to the Louvre to see that Islam is progress, science, finesse, modernity, and that fanaticism in the name of Islam is a corruption of Islam," Sarkozy said at the ceremony. The new exhibition space is due to open in 2010 after the 86-million-euro (136-million-dollar) renovation project is completed at the Louvre, which draws... AFP http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2046561/posts#comment Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:05:58 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2046521/posts   Private jets, Bugatti cars, a shark-filled aquarium and enough bank accounts to paper the new luxury yacht - the extraordinary capacity of some African leaders and their families for apparent self-enrichment has been laid bare in a French lawsuit over allegedly stolen state money. Following an inquiry last year by the French fraud body OCRGDF, an anti-corruption campaign group has accused a string of African politicians of plundering vast sums from the often struggling economies of their countries. (edit)The richest parts of France are teeming with homes, cars, boats and other expensive baubles belonging - in practice, at... The Telegraph (U.K.) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2046521/posts#comment Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:33:31 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2045172/posts Leaders from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa have been attending France's Bastille Day military parade. BBC http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2045172/posts#comment Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:06:20 GMT