French presidential rivals Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal waited anxiously on Wednesday for a defeated centrist candidate, whose votes could tip next week’s run-off ballot, to reveal his intentions. Francois Bayrou has come under intense pressure to throw the weight of his seven million voters behind either Sarkozy or Royal.
EADS co-chief executive Noel Forgeard was being questioned on Wednesday by France’s parliamentary finance committee on why he sold millions of euros’ worth of shares in the European aerospace group just before it announced delays in deliveries of its Airbus A380 superjumbo.
The joint head of European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS) rejected on Friday suggestions he had indulged in insider trading knowing the group would announce delivery delays for the Airbus superjumbo which have slashed the value of the business.
A film festival for movies shot on cellphones opened on Friday in Paris, aiming to take cinema a technological and creative step forward in the country that gave birth to the seventh art. The Pocket Film Festival, which was to screen pictures ranging from 30-second shorts to a full-length feature set in Rome, seeks both to showcase an emerging art form and to ask what effect it might have on mainstream cinema.
Prince Albert II on Tuesday formally assumed the throne of Monaco, the Mediterranean statelet that has become indelibly linked with Hollywood glamour and jet-set wealth. The ceremony came less than a week after Albert confirmed that he had fathered the child of a French-Togolese former air hostess.