France extended their perfect record against Italy with a 25-13 win on Sunday that kept alive their slim chances of retaining the Six Nations title. France, who bounced back from a defeat by England on the same Stade de France pitch two weeks ago, will now try to ruin Wales’s Grand Slam hopes next Saturday in Cardiff.
Calls to end forced marriage, domestic abuse and job discrimination marked International Women’s Day on Saturday as demonstrators took to the streets worldwide. The issues highlighted crossed a wide spectrum, including abortion rights in Italy, violence against women in Iraq and women hostages in Colombia.
African neighbours Chad and Sudan will sign an agreement to end their long-running conflict in Dakar next week, the Senegalese president said on Friday. "There will be the signing of a general agreement and an implementation agreement" on March 12, President Abdoulaye Wade said.
Fighting triggered by a rebel assault on Chad’s capital, Ndjamena, last month killed about 700 people, President Idriss Déby Itno said in comments broadcast on Thursday. Rebels opposed to Déby attacked Ndjamena on February 2 and besieged his presidential palace.
Europe’s European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) won its share of a huge contract to build aerial tankers for the United States thanks in part to improved French-American ties, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was quoted on Thursday as saying.
Arsenal produced one of their finest performances under Arsene Wenger on Tuesday to dethrone AC Milan, beating the Champions League holders 2-0 on the night and on aggregate in their last 16 second leg clash. Arsenal’s great Premiership rivals Manchester United also eased through with a 1-0 victory.
Frederic Michalak is an anomaly in the migration patterns, the maverick flyhalf the sole French player moving to South Africa to play while many Boks head the other way. It now seems almost voguish that every French rugby team have at least a couple of South Africans on their books.
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/ 29 February 2008
The reason they put bubbles in it, wine-growers from Bordeaux and Burgundy have been heard to say, is because the wine is no good. But with 338-million bottles sold last year and exports up 5,3%, champagne has come far from humble times.
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/ 27 February 2008
French President Nicolas Sarkozy travelled to Chad on Wednesday as rights groups urged France not to ”cover up” for President Idriss Déby Itno, accused of having a hand in the disappearance of opposition members. The president will make a brief stopover in Ndjamena en route to South Africa.
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/ 26 February 2008
French President Nicolas Sarkozy sharply criticised the chairperson of scandal-hit bank Société Générale in an interview published on Tuesday, saying his response to billion-euro losses was "not normal". "When the president of a company sees losses of that magnitude and does not draw conclusions from it, that’s not normal," Sarkozy said.
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/ 24 February 2008
A 26-year-old engineer has been sentenced to three years in prison for creating a fake profile of the younger brother of Moroccan King Mohammed VI on the popular internet networking site Facebook. A court in Casablanca on Friday convicted Fouad Mourtada of ”usurping the identity of HRH Prince Moulay Rachid”.
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/ 24 February 2008
French vineyard owners are returning to a slower pace of life by starting to export their wine by sailing boat — a method last used in the 1800s — to reduce their carbon footprint. Later this month, 60 000 bottles from Languedoc will be shipped to Ireland in a 19th-century barque, saving about 8 300kg of carbon.
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/ 24 February 2008
England, fired by the boot of Jonny Wilkinson, dashed French hopes of a Six Nations grand slam with a 24-13 win over France at the Stade de France in Paris on Saturday. It was England’s first away win over France in the Six Nations since 2000, and left unbeaten Wales as the only side now capable of claiming the grand slam.
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/ 21 February 2008
Asked about his plans for lighter, eco-friendly glass bottles and packaging, the head of a southern French wine company this week said that simply was not the issue. "The issue is glass supply. We have a big problem, we cannot get bottles to put our wine in," said Jean-Claude Mas.
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/ 20 February 2008
Writer and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet, an ”enfant terrible” of France’s literary establishment who helped found the New Novel school in the 1950s, died on February 18 aged 85. Robbe-Grillet became a cult figure among France’s postwar intelligentsia with a genre of novel-writing that rejected conventions such as plot and characterisation.
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/ 18 February 2008
Liverpool tackle Italian giants Inter Milan in their Champions League second round clash on Tuesday desperately needing a victory to prevent their season falling apart. Liverpool will be one of two English clubs who entertain Milan’s finest this week as Arsenal attempt to recover from their 4-0 FA Cup mauling by Manchester United.
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/ 18 February 2008
French police launched raids in a Parisian suburb early on Monday, arresting 33 people they suspected of being involved in violent clashes that broke out in the area in November. About 1 000 police officers were involved in the operation, which began at about 6am in Villiers-le-Bel, to the north of Paris.
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/ 18 February 2008
France and England meet next Saturday in the Six Nations at the same venue where French World Cup hopes were extinguished by their bitter rivals. New French coach Marc Lievremont has swept out a lot of the old guard and replaced them with fresh faces with a view to rebuilding for the 2011 World Cup.
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/ 13 February 2008
Lawyers for Jerome Kerviel, the rogue trader blamed by French bank Société Générale for huge losses, lodged an appeal against his detention, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday. Kerviel placed a secret wrong-way bet on the share market that Société Générale blames for a -billion trading loss in the world’s biggest rogue trading scandal.
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/ 13 February 2008
French crooner Henri Salvador, who first went on stage in the cabarets of pre-war Paris and played guitar with Django Reinhardt, died in Paris on February 13 aged 90, his record company announced. Salvador helped introduce France to rock’n’roll, inspired the invention of bossa nova in Brazil and was a pioneer of the music video.
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/ 13 February 2008
The world oil market could be set for a lengthy slowdown, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday, signalling a sharp shift in the climate that pushed the oil price to $100 last month. "Just as the demand shock of 2004 shaped the oil market for the next three years, so too could the pending slowdown," the IEA said in its monthly review of oil trends.
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/ 12 February 2008
Société Générale launched a discounted â,¬5,5-billion capital increase on Monday to prop up its finances and heal scars from the world’s biggest rogue trading scandal. The one-for-four rights issue at â,¬47,50 per share gives its existing shareholders a bigger-than-expected discount of 38,9% to Friday’s price.
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/ 12 February 2008
By mid-century, getting it on with an electronic femme fatale or a superstud sexbot will become an accepted part of the human landscape, predicts David Levy, a PhD in gender studies and artificial intelligence and author of <i>Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relations</i>.
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/ 11 February 2008
Argentina and Chile will host the 2009 Dakar Rally between January 3 and 18 with Buenos Aires as the start and finish city, organisers said on Monday. The move comes after the 2008 edition of the event was cancelled for the first time since its inception in 1979 due to security concerns after four French tourists were murdered in Mauritania on December 24.
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/ 11 February 2008
South Africa lock Bakkies Botha is set to join French second division club Toulon, sports daily L’Equipe reported on Monday. Botha (28) agreed a three-year contract on Sunday and could start playing for Toulon in April, L’Equipe said.
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/ 11 February 2008
Other banks and the French taxman stand to make hundreds of million of dollars as Société Générale boosts its capital with a deeply discounted rights issue after rogue trading and United States subprime losses. An official at the bank said on Monday the company would have to pay taxes on a €1,4-billion capital gain.
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/ 10 February 2008
Defending champions America and France, two of the most successful countries in Davis Cup history, will clash in this year’s quarterfinals after cruising through their World Group first-round ties. The United States, the 31-time champions, saw off Austria 3-0 while nine-time winners France also opened up a 3-0 lead over Romania.
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/ 10 February 2008
France winger Vincent Clerc once again proved fatal to Irish rugby as he ran in a hat-trick of first-half tries to inspire the French to a 26-21 victory over Ireland in their Six Nations clash at the Stade de France on Saturday. The 26-year-old flyer — who would not have played had Julien Malzieu not been injured — notched up his sixth try in the last three Tests against the Irish.
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/ 10 February 2008
A new court battle will be held on Monday over the detention of French rogue trader Jerome Kerviel. The decision by a Paris appeals court on Friday to back a prosecution demand that the 31-year-old trader be held in custody was the latest twist in the worst investment banking scandal in history.
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/ 9 February 2008
A second trader suspected of involvement in the multibillion-dollar losses at Société Générale bank was taken for questioning by judges on Saturday. The unnamed broker at Société Générale subsidiary Fimat was seen leaving the headquarters of the police financial brigade aboard an unmarked police van escorted by a car.
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/ 8 February 2008
A French inquiry into a €4,9-billion trading loss at Société Générale widened to a second broker on Friday as investigators sought to establish whether rogue trader Jerome Kerviel acted alone. The news emerged as a court prepared to rule on whether Kerviel should be taken into custody.
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/ 7 February 2008
Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno said on Thursday he was willing to pardon six French aid workers convicted of trying to fly more than 100 children out of the country, now serving their jail terms in France. ”I am ready to pardon them,” Déby told French radio Europe 1.