Timeline France 2000-2009
Return to home
2000 Jan 1, A law
to cut the workweek to 35 hours from 39 as a means to create jobs by
this date was proposed in 1997 by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A9)
2000 Jan 13, In France a 50 member
surgical team performed the world's first double-hand and forearm
transplant at Edouard-Herriot Hospital in a 17-hour operation led by
Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard.
(SFC, 1/15/00, p.A3)
2000 Feb 1, In France the new
35-hour work week took legal effect. Workers that included truckers
struck across the country for a number of demands that included higher
pay. The truckers were exempted from the reduced work week.
(SFC, 2/2/00, p.B2)
2000 Feb 5, Claude Autant-Lara,
film director, died at age 98. His over 30 films included "Le Diable au
Corps" (Devil in the Flesh), "Le Rouge et le Noir" (The Red and the
Black), based on the novel by Stendhal, and "La Traversee de Paris"
(Four Bags Full).
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A23)
2000 Feb 11, Roger Vadim, film
director, died in Paris at age 72. His 5 wives included Brigitte
Bardot, Annette Stroyberg, Catherine Deneuve, Jane Fonda, Catherine
Schneider and Marie-Christine Barrault.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A21)(AP, 2/11/01)
2000 Apr 19, In the Brittany
region of France a bomb exploded in a McDonald’s restaurant in Dinan
and one worker was killed.
(SFC, 4/20/00, p.A18)
2000 Apr, The book “Journal de
1994, Campagne de France,” by Renaud Camus, was withdrawn from
bookstores due to anti-Semitic remarks. It returned to stores in July
with 10 of the inflammatory pages blank.
(WSJ, 8/7/00, p.A13)
2000 May 19, In France an 11-day
strike by armored truck guards left the country short of cash.
(SFC, 5/20/00, p.A9)
2000 May 20, Jean-Pierre Rampal,
classical flutist, died in Paris at age 78.
(SFEC, 5/21/00, p.B11)
2000 May 23, In France the 15-day
strike by armored truck security guards ended after they agreed to a
risk premium of $138 per month.
(SFC, 5/24/00, p.C4)
2000 Jun 6, Frederic Dard,
novelist, died at age 78. His 300 novels included 140 in the “San
Antonio” detective series.
(SFC, 6/9/00, p.D5)
2000 Jun 15, Jules Roy,
Algeria-born Air Force pilot and author, died at age 92. His books
included “Les Chevaux du Soleil” (Horses in the Sun), “La Vallee
Heureuse” (Contented Valley) and “La Bataille dans les Rizieres” (The
Battle in the Rice Paddies).
(SFC, 6/16/00, p.A34)
2000 Jun 30, Germaine Montero,
singer, actress and poet, died at age 90.
(SFC, 7/1/00, p.C2)
2000 Jul 10, DASA (minus MTU)
merged with Aerospatiale-Matra of France and Construcciones
Aeronáuticas SA (CASA) of Spain to form the European Aeronautic
Defence and Space Company (EADS). DASA was founded as Deutsche
Aerospace AG on May 19, 1989 by the merger of Daimler-Benz's aerospace
interests (MTU, Dornier and two divisions of AEG). In July 1989 the two
AEG divisions were themselves merged within Deutsche Aerospace to form
Telefunken Systemtechnik (TST). In December 1989 Daimler-Benz acquired
Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) and merged it into DASA.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DASA)
2000 Jul 25, In France a NY bound
Concorde jet crashed in Gonesse after takeoff and all 109 people aboard
were killed along with 4 people on the ground. Passengers included 96
Germans, 2 Danes and an Austrian. Debris from a blown tire was later
believed to have caused an engine fire. A 5th body was found in the
rubble of the Hotelissimo. It was the first-ever crash of the
supersonic jet. A final probe in 2002 attributed runway junk as the
cause of the crash.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.A1)(SFC, 7/27/00, p.A12)(SFC,
7/29/00, p.A12)(AP, 7/25/01)(SFC, 1/17/02, p.A8)
2000 Aug 29, Interior Minister
Jean-Pierre Chevenement resigned over a proposed peace plan for
Corsica. The plan offered limited rights to pass laws beginning in 2004
for the 250,000 inhabitants.
(SFC, 8/30/00, p.A12)
2000 Aug 31, The government
announced a package of tax reductions worth $16.5 billion over 3 years.
(SFC, 9/1/00, p.D2)
2000 Sep 4, Farmers along with and
truckers and taxi drivers protested high fuel costs with demonstrations
at 80 facilities.
(SFC, 9/5/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 7, Taxi drivers began
“Operation Escargot,” driving into cities at a snails pace, to protest
gasoline prices.
(SFC, 9/8/00, p.A14)
2000 Sep 9, Union leaders called
for an end to the 6-day fuel protests.
(SFEC, 9/10/00, p.A18)
2000 Sep 22, France allowed a
chartered aircraft with humanitarian personnel to fly to Baghdad.
(SFC, 9/23/00, p.A8)
2000 Sep 24, Voters approved a
reduction in the presidents term of office to 5 years from 7.
(SFC, 9/25/00, p.A12)
2000 Oct, Rev. Rene Bissey was
convicted for raping and abusing 11 minors in the mid 1990s. He was
sentenced to 18 years in prison. In 2001 Bishop Pierre Pican was
convicted for keeping quiet about Rev. Bissey and received a 3-month
suspended sentence.
(SFC, 9/5/01, p.A8)
2000 Nov 22, Theodore Monod,
environmentalist, died at age 98. He was an expert on the Sahara Desert
and authored many books including: “Meharees,” “The Hippopotamus and
the Philosopher,” “Bathyfolages,” “Le Desert,” and “memoirs of a
Naturalist Traveler.”
(SFC, 11/23/00, p.D9)
2000 Dec 1, Michel Roussin, former
right-hand man of Pres. Jacques Chirac when he was mayor of Paris, was
arrested for a kickback scheme in school construction projects.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A15)
2000 Dec 7, Some 4,000 protestors
clashed with police at the opening of the EU summit in Nice.
(SFC, 12/8/00, p.A20)
2000 Dec, Emile Louis, a retired
bus driver and convicted sex offender, was arrested for kidnapping
several mentally impaired women who disappeared from Auxierre in the
late 1970s.
(SFC, 12/20/00, p.A18)
2000 Pernod Ricard SA acquired the
Mexican tequila producer Viuda de Romero.
(WSJ, 9/7/05, p.B2)
2001 Jan 5, In 2007 it was
reported that a French intelligence document dated to this day warned
that al-Qaida was at work on a hijacking plot. The information was
passed on to the CIA. Documents on Osama bin Laden's terror network
were drawn up by the French spy service, the DGSE, between July 2000
and October 2001.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2001 Jan 20, Dr. Charles Merieux,
virologist and founder of the Merieux Laboratory, died at age 94. He
helped produce the Salk vaccine cultivated in minced monkey kidney
tissue. He also produced a vaccine against a meningitis strain that
killed 4,000 people in Brazil in 1974.
(SFC, 1/27/01, p.A24)
2001 Jan 30, Thousands of
teachers, hospital workers and police marched across France to demand
pay increases. Some 17,000 marched in Paris.
(SFC, 1/31/01, p.A12)
2001 Jan 30, Actor Jean-Pierre
Aumont died at age 90. His 1976 autobiography was titled “Sun and
Shadow.”
(SFC, 1/31/01, p.C2)
2001 Feb 2, Alfred Sirven, former
2nd in command of Elf Aquitaine, was arrested in Manila following 4
years on the lam. He was involved in a multimillion-dollar corruption
case against Roland Dumas, a former French foreign minister.
(SFC, 2/3/01, p.A10)
2001 Feb 17, The
Cambodian-registered East Sea freighter with 912 ethnic Kurds ran
aground off the French Riviera. The crew of the ship fled following the
intentional grounding. Criminal gangs in Turkey and Iraq were reported
to be behind the smuggling.
(SSFC, 2/18/01, p.D1)(SFC, 2/19/01, p.A10)
2001 Feb 17, Charles Trenet,
singer and songwriter known as Le Fou Chantant (The Singing Fool), died
at age 87. His songs included “La Mer” (1946), which Bobby Darin made
famous in 1960 as “Beyond the Sea.”
(SFC, 2/21/01, p.A18)
2001 Mar 2, Alois Brunner, former
deputy of Adolf Eichmann, was sentenced to life imprisonment for war
crimes against humanity. He was believed to be still alive in Syria,
where he fled in 1954.
(SFC, 3/3/01, p.A10)
2001 Mar 4, Jean Bazaine, artist,
died at age 96. He was know for his painting, mosaics and stained-glass
work.
(SFC, 3/6/01, p.B2)
2001 Mar 5, France banned exports
of animals at risk for hoof-and-mouth disease.
(SFC, 3/6/01, p.A11)
2001 Mar 13, US regulators moved
to ban all live animals and uncooked animal products from the EU
following the discovery of hoof-and-mouth disease in France.
(SFC, 3/14/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 18, Mayoral elections
were held in Paris. Bertrand Delanoe, candidate of the Socialist,
Communists and 2-other left-wing parties, won over Philippe Seguin.
Socialists also won in Lyon. This ended a century of nearly unbroken
rule by the right.
(SFC, 3/8/01, p.A12)(SFC, 3/19/01, p.A8)(AP, 3/18/02)
2001 Apr 13, Up to 15,000 people
were evacuated from the region of Vimy due to fears of explosions from
a World War I bomb storage site.
(SFC, 4/14/01, p.A8)
2001 May 18, Loik Le
Floch-Prigent, former head of Elf Aquitane SA (1989-1994), told
newspapers that millions of dollars were paid in secret commissions to
African governments, Spain and Germany, with the approval of 5
presidents.
(SFC, 5/19/01, p.A8)
2001 May 30, Roland Dumas, a
former foreign minister, was sentenced to 6 months in jail for
corruption. Alfred Sirven, 2nd in command at Elf, was sentenced to 4
years in jail along with a fine. Loik Le Floch-Prigent, former Elf
president was sentenced to 3 ½ years in jail; along with a fine.
Christine Deviers-Joncour was sentenced to 3 years in jail with half
suspended.
(SFC, 5/31/01, p.A12)
2001 Jul 6, In France a tree
crashed on music spectators at the Chateau Pourtales near Strasbourg
and 10 people were killed.
(SFC, 7/7/01, p.B1)
2001 Jul 29, Lance Armstrong won
his 3rd straight Tour de France bicycle race.
(SFC, 7/30/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 3, In France COGEMA, a
state-owned uranium mining and fuel recycling firm led by Anne
Lauvergeon, became Areva in a merger with Framatome, a maker of nuclear
reactors.
(www.freebase.com/view/en/areva)(Econ, 5/9/09, p.70)
2001 Sep 21, In France a suspected
accidental explosion at a TotalFinaELF chemical fertilizer plant in
Toulouse killed 29 people and injured at least 650.
(SFC, 9/22/01, p.A20)(WSJ, 9/24/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 11, The highest appellate
court ruled that Pres. Chirac is immune from criminal prosecution for
corruption charges for his years as mayor of Paris, but only while
still in office.
(SFC, 12/30/01, p.D7)
2001 Oct 21, In Kazakstan a
3-person Russian-French crew blasted off for the Int’l. Space Station
in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The crew included Claudie Haignere, who
in 1996 became the 1st Frenchwoman in space.
(SFC, 10/22/01, p.B2)
2001 Oct 29, In Tours, France, a
masked gunman, later identified as a state railway employee, killed 4
people. He was arrested and a grudge was suspected.
(WSJ, 10/30/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 26, Former French
intelligence chief General Paul Aussaressess testified that the orders
he issued to torture and kill prisoners during the Algerian
independence war were justifiable acts of duty.
(AP, 11/26/02)
2001 Nov 26, French and Belgian
police arrested 14 people suspected of organizing the Sep 9
assassination of Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Masood. Belgium
released 12 of its suspects the next day.
(WSJ, 11/27/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/28/01, p.A1,12)
2001 Nov 28, French gendarme
Gerard Larroude received 8 bullet wounds in the head and throat in an
attack by ETA separatists in Pau, but survived the attack. In 2008 Ibon
Fernandez de Iradi was found guilty of trying to kill Larroude and was
sentenced to 30 years in prison. Antonio Agustin Figal Arranz, a
suspected accomplice, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
(www.cityfmradio.com/detalle_noticia.php?id_noticia=8928)
2001 Dec 11, In the first criminal
indictment stemming from Sept. 11, a US grand jury in Virginia charged
Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, with
conspiring to murder thousands in the suicide hijackings. Moussaoui
pleaded guilty to conspiracy in 2005 and was sentenced to life in
prison.
(WSJ, 12/12/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/12/01, p.A1)(AP,
12/11/06)
2001 Dec 18, Gilbert Becaud,
French singer and songwriter known as “Mr. 100,000 Volts,” died at age
74. He was born as Francois Gilbert Silly in Toulon and his songs
included “What Now My Love” and “Let It Be Me.”
(SFC, 12/22/01, p.A28)
2001 Dec 22, Passengers and flight
attendants subdued Richard Colvin Reid on AA Flight 63 from Paris to
Miami. He appeared to have explosive materials in his shoes. The flight
was diverted to Boston and the FBI confirmed that his shoes were packed
with explosives. French police identified the man as Tariq Raja (28), a
Sri Lankan traveling on a British passport. The sneakers contained
pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and triacetone triperoxide (TATP).
On Jan 30, 2003 Reid was sentenced to life in prison. A 2nd plot
involved Saajid Badat, who backed out of similar plan on a different
flight. In 2005 a British judge sentenced Badat (25) to 13 years in
prison.
(SSFC, 12/23/01, p.A1)(SFC, 12/24/01, p.A1,6)(SFC,
1/31/03, p.A1)(SFC, 4/23/05, p.A4)
2001 Dec 26, In France some 550
Iraqi Kurds, Afghans, Iranians and other refugees from the Sangatte Red
Cross center near the 33-mile Channel Tunnel attempted to reach asylum
in Britain. All were captured by French police.
(SFC, 12/27/01, p.A4)(AP, 12/25/02)
2001 Pernod Ricard SA acquired the
Polish vodka Wyborova, Czech bitters Jan Becher and Seagram’s Martell
cognac and Chivas scotch.
(WSJ, 9/7/05, p.B2)
2001 The crime rate in France
topped the US this year. Over 25,000 cars were burned in French cities
as violence increased primarily due to immigrant gangs from sub-Saharan
Africa, Romania and the former Yugoslavia.
(SSFC, 4/28/02, Par p.9)
2001 Traffic accidents in France
killed over 8,000 people this year. Speed cameras were installed on
roads beginning in 2003 and by 2005 the number of deaths fell to just
above 5,000.
(Econ, 10/21/06, p.61)
2002 Jan 1, New Euro bills
replaced the national currency.
(SFC, 12/4/97, p.C5)(SFC, 1/2/02, p.A8)
2002 Jan 11, Henri Verneuil, film
director, died at age 81.
(SFC, 1/11/02, p.A19)
2002 Feb 4, An 8-year corruption
investigation of Elf Aquitaine, privatized in 1994, ended with 40
people implicated.
(SFC, 2/5/02, p.A6)
2002 Feb 18, France's Marina
Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat narrowly won the Olympic ice dancing gold
medal.
(AP, 2/18/07)
2002 Mar 15, Disney opened its new
$532.9 million movie-themed park adjacent to Disneyland Paris.
(WSJ, 3/12/02, p.B1)
2002 Mar 9, The Mont Blanc tunnel
reopened to connect Italy and France.
(SSFC, 3/17/02, p.C4)
2002 Mar 27, In France Richard
Durn (33), described as a tormented loner looking for a political
cause, opened fire at the end of a city council meeting in Nanterre, a
suburb of Paris, and killed 8 city council members. Durn jumped to his
death under police custody on Mar 28.
(SFC, 3/27/02, p.A7)(SFC, 3/28/02, p.A17)(AP,
3/27/07)
2002 Mar 29, France reported the
successful cloning of rabbits using genetic material from adult cells.
(SFC, 3/30/02, p.A3)
2002 Mar 31, An arson attacked
destroyed Marseille’s Or Aviv temple. It was the 3rd synagogue attack
in France over the Passover weekend.
(SFC, 4/2/02, p.A8)
2002 Apr 21, The 1st round of
presidential elections put Jean-Marie Le Pen, a right wing extremist,
into a runoff with Pres. Jacques Chirac. Le Pen took 17% of the vote
vs. 16% for PM Lionel Jospin.
(SFC, 4/22/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 27, At least 200,000
protesters marched in cities around France in anger at the electoral
showing of Jean-Marie Le Pen.
(SSFC, 4/28/02, p.A12)
2002 May 5, In France Pres. Chirac
won a 2nd term in a landslide over extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le
Pen.
(WSJ, 5/6/02, p.A1)(AP, 5/5/03)
2002 May 5, Antoine Riboud
(1918-2002), founder of French food firm Danone (1973), died.
(http://tinyurl.com/8sb5u)
2002 May 6, French Pres. Chirac
appointed Jean-Pierre Raffarin (center right) as PM.
(SFC, 5/7/02, p.A12)(Econ, 2/12/05, p.50)
2002 May 8, In Pakistan a bomb
destroyed a shuttle bus in Karachi. 11 of 14 dead were French naval
engineers helping to build a submarine for Pakistan. Asif Zaheer and
Mohammad Rizwan, who allegedly belonged to Al-Qaeda-linked extremist
group Harkatul Mujahideen al-Aalmi, were found guilty in 2003 of
assisting the suicide attack which also killed 3 Pakistanis. In May,
2009, a Pakistan court acquitted the two men sentenced to death over
the bombing. Mohammad Sohail Habib, who also allegedly belonged to
Al-Qaeda-linked extremist group Harkatul Mujahideen al-Aalmi, was
sentenced to death in his absence in 2003 for assisting the suicide
attack. Sohail was arrested in 2005 but was acquitted after a six-month
re-trial in an anti-terrorism court ordered on appeal by the high
court. In October, 2009, a Pakistani court acquitted Soheil for lack of
evidence.
(SFC, 5/8/02, p.A17)(SFC, 5/8/02, p.A8)(WSJ, 5/9/02,
p.A1)(AFP, 5/5/09)(AFP, 10/30/09)
2002 May 21, Niki de Saint Phalle
(71), French pop artist, died in San Diego. Her work included the
Stravinsky Fountain outside the Pompidou Center in Paris.
(SFC, 5/23/02, p.A23)
2002 May 23, The Israeli Embassy
in Paris burned beyond repair. A faulty circuit was suspected.
(SFC, 5/24/02, p.A16)
2002 Jun 9, Pres. Jacques Chirac's
mainstream right prevailed in a first round of elections for France's
577-seat National Assembly.
(AP, 6/9/03)
2002 Jun 9, Albert Costa won the
French Open over fellow Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero.
(AP, 6/9/03)
2002 Jun 16, France's leftist
parliament became the latest casualty in Europe's rightward shift with
a crushing legislative victory by the mainstream right that gave
President Jacques Chirac full control of parliament.
(AP, 6/17/02)
2002 Jun 19, Air traffic
controllers in France and other nations went on strike to protest a
plan to dramatically reorganize the use of Europe's skies.
(AP, 6/19/02)
2002 Jun 22, The official
inauguration of the $89 million, Auvergne region European Volcanic
Park, was scheduled. It included a building complex designed by Hans
Hollein of Austria.
(WSJ, 4/18/02, p.D7)
2002 Jun 27, A US Air Force pilot
was killed when his A10 “Warthog” crashed during a training mission in
eastern France.
(SFC, 6/28/02, p.A14)
2002 Jun 29, Francois Perier (82),
a prolific and acclaimed actor whose presence on the French stage and
screen spanned three generations, died.
(AP, 6/29/02)
2002 Jul 14, Maxime Brunerie, a
man described as an emotionally disturbed neo-Nazi, tried to
assassinate French President Jacques Chirac. He pulled a rifle from a
guitar case and fired off a shot before being wrestled to the ground
during a Bastille Day parade. Brunerie, sentenced to 10 years, was
released from prison in 2009.
(AP, 7/14/02)(AP, 8/22/09)
2002 Jul 31, US court papers
alleged that Russia's Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov (53) used his influence
with members of the Russian and French skating federations to fix the
outcome of the pairs and ice dancing competitions at the Salt Lake City
Winter Olympics last February. Tokhtakhounov was arrested in Italy.
Italy’s highest court denounced an extradition bid and freed
Tokhtakhounov.
(Reuters, 7/31/02)(SFC, 8/1/02,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alimzhan_Tokhtakhounov)
2002 Sep 7, In Paris over 6,000
people marched through to demand residency permits for France's illegal
immigrants in the largest of a series of recent rallies.
(AP, 9/7/02)
2002 Sep 10, In southeastern
France authorities said flooding and heavy rain had claimed the lives
of 26 people. Rescuers were searching for dozens of others reported
missing.
(AP, 9/10/02)
2002 Sep 12, Pres. Bush addressed
the UN and laid out his case against Iraq’s Pres. Saddam Hussein. Bush
was expected to announce US plans to rejoin Unesco, headquartered in
Paris. France favored a demand for weapons inspectors in Iraq along
with force if Iraq resisted.
(WSJ, 9/12/02, p.A1,4)(SFC, 9/13/02, p.A1)
2002 Sep 14, In France Tim
Montgomery, American sprinter, set a 9.78 second record in the
100-meter dash at the IAAF Grand Prix in Paris. In 2004 he admitted to
using steroids and a growth hormone. In 2005 he was banned from track
for 2 years and his 2001-2005 records were expunged.
(SFC, 6/24/04, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/14/05, p.A1)
2002 Sep 18, A French appeals
court ordered wartime collaborator Maurice Papon freed, accepting his
lawyers' arguments that the 92-year-old is too sick to finish his
10-year sentence for helping send Jews to Nazi death camps.
(AP, 9/18/07)
2002 Sep 25, Explosives (pentrite)
were discovered on a Moroccan jet after passengers left the flight at
an airport in eastern France. There was no detonator attached to the 3
1/2 ounces of explosives discovered in the passenger section of a Royal
Air Maroc airplane after it landed at the Metz-Nancy-Lorraine airport.
(AP, 9/26/02)
2002 Sep 25, US military C-130s
and US troops landed in Ivory Coast to rescue Americans. American
schoolchildren escaped a rebel-held Ivory Coast city that was under
siege as US special forces and French troops moved in to rescue
Westerners caught in the West African nation's bloody uprising.
(AP, 9/25/02)(AP, 9/25/07)
2002 Oct 1, The French bolstered
their forces in Ivory Coast, flying in reinforcements and establishing
a tactical command post for military action in its embattled former
colony.
(AP, 10/1/02)
2002 Oct 3, In France tens of
thousands of public workers marched through Paris to protest plans to
sell off parts of state-owned companies.
(AP, 10/3/02)
2002 Oct 4, In France Jamal Derrar
(22) poured gasoline over Sohane Benziane (17) and then approached her
with a cigarette lighter, setting her on fire. She died later at a
hospital with burns over 80 percent of her body. In 2006 Derrar was
convicted for acts of torture and barbarity that led to unintentional
death. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
(AP, 4/8/06)
2002 Oct 6, A fire broke out on
the Limberg, a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen, setting
barrels of oil ablaze and sparking an explosion killing one Bulgarian
crew member. The explosion was soon determined to be the result of a
terrorist attack. Insurance paid out $70 million for the damages.
(AP, 10/6/02)(SFC, 10/11/02, p.A13)(AP,
10/6/03)(Econ, 4/22/06, p.73)
2002 Nov 6, In France a fire broke
out on an overnight express train, filling a sleeper car with smoke and
killing 12 passengers. Five Americans were among the dead, including
two children.
(AP, 11/6/02)
2002 Nov 25, In France striking
truckers blockaded roadways in about 20 locations, but police
intervened to dismantle several barricades that had slowed access to
airports and highways.
(AP, 11/25/02)
2002 Nov 26, A poll of 50,000
people, commissioned by Durex condom makers SSL International and
released in Malaysia, showed the French had sex an average 167 times a
year, pipping the Danes and the Dutch for the number one spot. It was a
bad year for sex in the United States, which came in eleventh with an
average of 138, after heading the rankings in 2001. Britons scored an
average of 149 times. At the bottom of the pile, Singapore's 110 times
was two less than Thailand's. Four in 10 people in India did not have
sex until they were married and Norwegians were most likely to have sex
on the first date, the survey showed. Norwegians, along with South
Africans, were also more likely than any other nationality to have a
one-night stand. Those in Taiwan were least likely; just 20 percent
surveyed had a one-night stand.
(Reuters, 11/26/02)
2002 Nov 26, French air traffic
controllers walked off the job as part of a nationwide protest by civil
servants.
(AP, 11/26/02)
2002 Nov 26, The Astra-1K
satellite was launched atop a Russian Proton rocket from the Baikonur
cosmodrome in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. The world's
largest communications satellite, manufactured by France's Alcatel
Space corporation for Societe Europeene des Satellites of Luxembourg,
was lost after it went into the wrong orbit.
(AP, 11/26/02)(WSJ, 11/27/02, p.A1)
2002 Nov 27, French police
arrested a man in Lyon after he tried to hijack an Alitalia flight
carrying 57 passengers from Bologna to Paris.
(Reuters, 11/27/02)
2002 Dec 16, French
counterterrorism agents arrested 4 suspected Islamic militants in a
Paris suburb. The three Algerians and a Moroccan had an unidentified
liquid and an anti-contamination suit.
(AP, 12/17/02)
2002 Dec 21, French forces opened
fire on rebels in western Ivory Coast, trying to stop the insurgents
from pushing past them toward the commercial capital Abidjan.
(AP, 12/21/02)
2002 Dec 21, French television
journalist, Patrick Bourrat, was struck while crossing the path of an
incoming tank during US military exercises in Kuwait. Bourrat died the
next day.
(AP, 12/22/02)
2002 Alistaire Horne authored
“Seven Ages of Paris,” a history of the city.
(SSFC, 12/1/02, p.M6)
2002 Richard Neupert authored “A
History of the French New Wave Cinema.”
(SSFC, 12/22/02, p.M2)
2002 Ian Pears authored “The Dream
of Scipio,” a historical novel set over 1,500 years in Provence.
(SSFC, 6/30/02, p.M1)
2002 Mayor Bertand Delanoe
inaugurated Paris Plages in 2002, filling sections of the left and
right banks of the Seine with sand and installing spray misters,
hammocks, parasols and other beach-style accoutrements. In 2006 Paris
City Hall has banned thong bikinis, topless sunbathing and nudity at
the summer sand-in-the-city event.
(AP, 7/29/06)
2002 France planed to abolish the
draft by the end of the year with a slimmed down force of some 357,000
volunteers. A 50,000-strong reserve force was part of the plan.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.A28)
2002 Arcelor Corp., a European
steelmaker, was created following the merger of France’s Usinor,
Spain’s Aceralia, and Luxembourg’s Arbed.
(Econ, 2/4/06, p.56)
2003 Jan 6, Rebels in western
Ivory Coast attacked French troops and French officials said 30 rebels
were killed and nine soldiers wounded.
(AP, 1/6/03)
2003 Jan 17, France and Spain
opened the new 5.3-mile Somport tunnel through the western Pyrenees
mountains.
(AP, 1/18/03)
2003 Jan 19, Francoise Giroud
(86), France’s 1st minister of women’s affairs died. She co-founded one
of France's top news magazines and became a powerful force in French
post-war journalism at a time when few women were in the business. She
published an autobiography in 1997.
(AP, 1/19/03)(SFC, 1/21/03, p.A18)
2003 Jan 22, France and Germany
joined forces to prevent any U.S.-led war on Iraq.
(Reuters, 1/22/03)
2003 Jan 27, A head-on train
collision between French and Italian passenger trains killed two
people. It appeared to be the result of human error.
(AP, 1/28/03)
2003 Jan 29, The body of
Abdelmalek Benbara (41), a member of the Algerian prime minister's
party reported missing Jan 17, was found in a car in Paris.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 Feb 1, Across France at least
150,000 people, some braving snow, poured into the streets to protest
government plans to reform the country's generous, but overburdened,
pension system.
(AP, 2/1/03)
2003 Feb 16, French
President Jacques Chirac said in a published interview that the massive
US military deployment in the Persian Gulf has made it possible to
peacefully disarm Iraq.
(AP, 2/16/03)
2003 Feb 20, Maurice
Blanchot (95), French postmodern novelist, died. His novels included
“Thomas the Obscure” (1973).
(SFC, 3/3/03, p.B6)
2003 Feb 24, Bernard
Loiseau (52), a celebrated French chef whose Cote D'Or restaurant in a
small Burgundy town became a mecca for the world's gourmets, died of
apparent suicide. In 2005 Rudolph Chelminski authored “The
Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine.”
(AP, 2/25/03)(SSFC, 6/12/05, p.B5)
2003 Feb 26, French Prime
Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin warned that waging war against Iraq now,
would split the international community and “be perceived as
precipitous and illegitimate.”
(AP, 2/26/03)
2003 Mar 5, The foreign
ministers of France, Germany and Russia said they will block any
attempt to get U.N. approval for war against Iraq.
(AP, 3/5/03)
2003 Mar 14, Jean-Luc Lagardere
(b.1928), French engineer and founder of the Lagardere Group, died. In
1999 the group, among the largest of French enterprises, acquired 31.5%
of Aerospatiale.
(Econ, 11/11/06,
p.79)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Luc_Lagard%C3%A8re)
2003 Mar 27, France introduced a
new terrorism alert system, with 4 color-coded levels to make the
national warning plan more flexible and understandable.
(AP, 3/27/03)
2003 Apr 3, French air traffic
controllers, postal workers and other public employees brought much of
the country to a halt with a one-day strike over government plans to
overhaul the pension system.
(AP, 4/3/03)
2003 Apr 7, Cecile de Brunhoff
(99), the inspiration for Babar the elephant whose adventures
captivated generations of children, died in Paris. She first invented
the tale of a little elephant as a bedtime story for her boys in 1931.
They in turn told their father, painter Jean de Brunhoff, who
illustrated the story and filled in details.
(AP, 4/8/03)
2003 Apr 11, The leaders of
Russia, France and Germany gathered for a summit that was expected to
push for the United Nations to play the leading role after the end of
hostilities in Iraq.
(AP, 4/11/03)
2003 Apr 22, France proposed that
the UN suspend economic sanctions against Iraq, but continue to operate
the oil-for-food program.
(SFC, 4/23/03, A8)
2003 Apr 23, Paris police arrested
28 airport workers for allegedly stealing digital cameras, perfumes,
jewelry, clothing and other goods from the bags of travelers.
(AP, 4/25/03)
2003 Apr 29, The leaders of
France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, all critics of the U.S.-led
war on Iraq, agreed to beef up their military cooperation in an effort
to make Europe's defense less reliant on the US.
(AP, 4/29/03)
2003 May 15, French Foreign
Minister Dominique de Villepin said in an interview that France wants
"lies and calumny" published in both the U.S. and British press to stop.
(AP, 5/16/03)
2003 May 31, Air France planned to
ground its last 5 Concorde airplanes.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.B5)
2003 May 17, In G-8 talks at a
Normandy resort the United States secured a commitment from the world's
wealthiest nations and Russia not to demand that Iraq begin paying off
its huge debts before 2005. The Paris Club's 19 members, which include
the US, are alone believed to be owed an estimated $26 billion, not
including interest accrued on the debt, most of which dates from the
1970s.
(AP, 5/18/03)
2003 May 17, A German tour bus
overturned on a French highway in heavy rain, killing at least 28 of
the 74 people on board.
(AP, 5/17/03)
2003 May 19, In France more than
300,000 protesters marched in anger over government pension reforms and
striking teachers prevented students from taking part of their
high-school graduation exams.
(AP, 5/20/03)
2003 May 25, In France at least
300,000 workers marched through the streets of Paris to protest
government plans to reform the pension system.
(AP, 5/26/03)
2003 May 31, Air France planned to
ground its last 5 Concorde airplanes. The Air France Concorde, the
world's fastest and most luxurious passenger jet, flew from New York to
Paris for the last time.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.B5)(AP, 5/30/03)(SSFC, 6/1/03, p.A2)
2003 Jun 1, President Bush arrived
in France from St. Petersburg and had a smile and firm handshake for
this year's Group of Eight nations summit host, French Pres. Jacques
Chirac.
(AP, 6/1/03)(SFC, 6/2/03, p.A1)
2003 Jun 1, Thousands of
protesters blocked highways and bridges, set fire to barricades and
drew volleys of tear gas and rubber pellets from anti-riot police near
the Group of Eight summit in the French town of Evian. Leaders pledged
billions of dollars to fight AIDS and hunger on the opening day of
their summit.
(AP, 6/1/03)
2003 Jun 2, In Evian, France,
world leaders projected confidence that they will turn around their
weak economies and pledged joint cooperation on a host of global issues
from terrorism to the need for a coordinated effort to rebuild Iraq.
(AP, 6/2/03)
2003 Jun 3, The G-8 in Evian,
France, issued closing statements. These included: confidence in the
global economic future; they put North Korea and Iran on notice that
member countries will not stand by and let them acquire nuclear
weapons; they committed to further improve cooperation with African
nations to lift the world's poorest continent out of civil war, disease
and poverty; and adopted a plan to help halve the number of people
without access to clean water and sanitation by 2015.
(AP, 6/3/03)
2003 Jun 6, French strikers
disrupted train and bus service and sanitation workers dumped garbage
in the street in the 4th day of a nationwide protest against government
plans to reform pensions.
(AP, 6/7/03)
2003 Jun 14, French troops leading
an international force engaged in a firefight with gunmen for the first
time in their mission to stabilize the northeastern Congolese town of
Bunia.
(AP, 6/14/03)
203 Jun 19, In France more
Iranians set themselves on fire to protest a crackdown on an Iraq-based
anti-Tehran group.
(WSJ, 6/20/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 6, Corsicans voted in a
historic referendum to give local officials more say in running the
Mediterranean island, an attempt to end years of attacks by separatists
fighting French rule.
(AP, 7/6/03)
2003 Jul 20, In France 2
explosions rocked central Nice, slightly injuring at least 16 people
and damaging several government buildings.
(AP, 7/20/03)
2003 Jul 22, In Paris an
electrical fire broke out near the top of the Eiffel Tower, forcing
thousands of alarmed visitors to evacuate.
(AP, 7/23/03)
2003 Jul 24, French lawmakers
overwhelmingly passed a pension reform bill despite weeks of protests
by people angry about having to work longer to get full retirement
benefits. PM Rafarrin managed to push through a pension reform against
union resistance with the support of CFDP, the French Defense and
Protection Company.
(AP, 7/24/03)(Econ, 4/8/06, p.49)
2003 Jul 24, The French Senate
passed a law banning the sale of cigarettes to minors under 16 and
raises the price per pack for the second time this year.
(AP, 7/24/03)
2003 Jul 27, Lance Armstrong rode
to his 5th straight Tour de France victory in a ceremonial final stage
in Paris.
(SSFC, 7/27/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 29, A heat wave and a
drought gauged a multibillion-dollar hole into Europe's economy,
crippling shipping, shriveling crops and driving up the cost of
electricity.
(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Jul 29, Forest fires swept
through parts of the ritzy French Riviera for a second day, devastating
scenic woods and forcing thousands to be evacuated. At least four
people have been killed.
(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Aug 1, Marie Trintignant (41)
died after several days on a respirator in France. She was initially
hospitalized in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, on July 27 after
French rock star Bertrand Cantat (39) allegedly beat her at the hotel
where they were staying with her mother and one of her sons.
Trintignant, had been in Lithuania since June filming a joint
French-Lithuanian television movie, "Colette," about the French female
writer. Bertrand Cantat was later sentenced to 8 years in prison for
manslaughter. He was released for good behavior in October 2007 after
serving four years.
(AP,
8/5/03)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Trintignant)
2003 Aug 14, The French health
ministry estimated that about 3,000 people had died in France of
heat-related causes since abnormally high temperatures swept across the
country about two weeks ago.
(AP, 8/14/03)
2003 Aug 18, Lucien Abenhaim, a
senior French health official resigned after the health minister
admitted that up to 5,000 people, many of them elderly and alone, might
have died in the recent heat wave.
(AP, 8/19/03)
2003 Aug 19, It was reported that
France had provided Alstom SA a $3.9 billion lifeline to save it from
bankruptcy. The bailout was made against EU rules.
(WSJ, 8/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 22, France announced a
$525 million aid package for farmers whose animals died by the millions
and whose crops withered in a heat wave estimated to have killed 10,000
people.
(AP, 8/22/03)
2003 Aug 21, France raised the
death toll from the recent heat wave to as many as 10,000.
(SFC, 8/22/03, p.A9)
2003 Aug 25, In Ivory Coast 2
French soldiers, part of a peacekeeping force, were killed.
(AP, 8/26/03)
2003 Aug 29, France raised the
death toll from the August heat wave to as many as 11,435.
(SFC, 8/30/03, p.A7)
2003 Aug 29, The board of Air
France approved a deal to combine with Dutch KLM under a holding
company to form the world's #3 airline.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Sep 25, In a new French deck
of cards Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gets the honor as ace of
spades. Pres. Bush is the king of diamonds and Osama bin Laden the
joker. Thierry Meyssan, the man behind the French deck, headed the
Voltaire Network, a left-wing association that put the cards on its
Internet site.
(AP, 9/25/03)
2003 Sep 25, In France INSERM, the
National Institute of Health and Medical Research, determined that
14,802 people had died in August due to the heat wave.
(AP, 9/25/03)
2003 Sep 26, Robert Palmer (54), a
rock singer known for his sharp suits and hits including "Addicted to
Love," died in Paris of a heart attack.
(AP, 9/26/03)
2003 Sep 27, Europe's first
mission to the moon blasted off aboard a European Ariane rocket from
French Guiana.
(AP, 9/28/03)
2003 Oct 11, The French government
and its main opposition joined in supporting school officials who
expelled two sisters for refusing to remove traditional Islamic
headscarves in class.
(AP, 10/11/03)
2003 Oct 20, France raised taxes
on tobacco products. Cigarette prices for a pack jumped from an average
$4.60 to $5.40.
(SFC, 10/21/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 7, France and Russia
signed an accord that is intended to pave the way for the eventual
launch of Russian rockets from a French launch pad in South America.
(AP, 11/7/03)
2003 Nov 15, In St. Nazaire,
France, a gangway to the Queen Mary 2, the world's largest passenger
ship, collapsed as people were boarding killing 15 people and injuring
29 others. One of the injured died in 2005. The victims were family
members visiting workers involved in construction of the nearly
finished, 21-story-tall ocean liner. In 2008 a French court ordered
Chantiers de l'Atlantique, builder of the ship, and Endel, builder of
the walkway, to pay $13.8 million in damages for their roles in the
deadly accident.
(AP, 11/15/03)(AP, 11/16/03)(AP, 2/12/08)
2003 Nov 16, In Afghanistan a
French UN worker was shot and killed by a man on a motorcycle who
opened fire on her car.
(AP, 11/16/03)
2003 Nov 24, British PM Tony Blair
and French President Jacques Chirac confronted the sensitive issue of
European defense and in a show of unity announced plans for a small
rapid-reaction force of EU peacekeepers.
(AP, 11/24/03)
2003 Dec 1, French diplomats and
other Foreign Ministry staff in 126 countries walked off the job in a
one-day strike to protest planned budget cuts.
(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Dec 2, Surging floodwaters
killed three men and swept a woman off a bridge in storms that lashed
southern France.
(AP, 12/3/03)
2003 Dec 6, Paul Louis Halley
(b.1934) French founder of Promodes (later Carrefour SA), died in a
light plane crash.
(WSJ, 4/15/08,
p.B2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Louis_Halley)
2003 Dec 9, French police arrested
Gorka Palacios Alday, the alleged military leader of the banned Basque
separatist group ETA, along with three accomplices.
(AP, 12/9/03)
2003 Dec 11, A French panel
recommended a national ban on Islamic head scarves, Jewish skullcaps
and large crucifixes at public schools.
(WSJ, 12/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 16, U.S. special envoy
James A. Baker III said France, Germany and the US agreed to seek
reductions in Iraq's foreign debt within the Paris Club of creditor
nations.
(AP, 12/16/03)(SFC, 12/17/03, p.A18)
2003 Dec 17, In France Pres.
Jacques Chirac announced his decision to pass a law banning Islamic
head scarves and other conspicuous religious symbols in public schools.
(AP, 12/18/03)
2003 France set up the French
Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM). Dalil Boubakeur was appointed
president following negotiations with interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
(Econ, 10/30/04, p.58)
2004 Jan 5, In Iraq 2 French
contractors, working on electricity projects, were killed in a drive-by
shooting near Fallujah.
(WSJ, 4/1/04, p.A10)
2004 Jan 16, Starbucks opened its
1st coffee shop in France.
(Econ, 1/17/04, p.67)
2004 Jan 20, French transport
workers went on a 1-day train strike.
(AP, 1/21/04)
2004 Jan 26, China's President Hu
Jintao arrived in France, with European ministers considering Beijing's
request that they lift an arms embargo imposed after the killing of
Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989.
(AP, 1/26/04)
2004 Jan 30, Alain Juppe, former
French PM (1995-1997), was found guilty in a party financing scandal
and declared ineligible for public office for 10 years.
(AP, 1/30/04)
2004 Jan 30, Iliad, a French
broadband firm founded by Xavier Niel, made a successful IPO. Niel was
briefly jailed a few months after its IPO, when it was discovered that
one of his sex shops was a front for prostituion. Niel was fully
exonerated, but was fined for receiving money from the shop.
(www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-4228042_ITM)
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.74)
2004 Feb 10, French legislators
voted 494-36 to ban religious emblems such as Muslim head scarves from
state schools.
(WSJ, 2/11/04, p.A1)
2004 Feb 10, French prosecutors
launched a money-laundering probe into the alleged transfers of $11.5
million dollars to accounts held by the wife of Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat.
(AP, 2/11/04)(WSJ, 2/11/04, p.A1)
2004 Feb 14, In France thousands
of people marched to protest a law banning the Islamic coverings and
other religious apparel in public schools.
(AP, 2/14/04)
2004 Feb 27, French Foreign
Minister Dominique de Villepin held talks with leaders of Haiti's
government on how to end a three-week rebellion.
(AP, 2/27/04)
2004 Feb 28, It was reported that
80% of Americans claim to believe in God, compared with 62% of the
French and 52% of Swedes.
(Econ, 2/28/04, p.34)
2004 Mar 3, French authorities
said a previously unknown terror group is threatening to blow up French
railway tracks unless it is paid millions of dollars.
(AP, 3/3/04)
2004 Mar 6, Thousands of women
marched through Paris to press for equal rights for women and show
support for a law to ban Islamic head scarves in public schools.
(AP, 3/6/04)
2004 Mar 10, France's government
worked to calm a revolt by scientists angry over funding cuts, even as
trade unions called for more protests.
(AP, 3/10/04)
2004 Mar 14, In Haiti French
troops took over patrols in a slum where U.S. Marines killed at least
two people.
(AP, 3/14/04)
2004 Mar 21, French voters
delivered a rebuke to PM Jean-Pierre Raffarin's reform plans in the 1st
round of regional elections. The elections, held every six years, are
for regional leaders responsible for some infrastructure projects, job
training, school construction and other tasks.
(AP, 3/22/04)
2004 Mar 21, Ludmila Tcherina
(79), French ballerina and Oscar-winning actress, The Tales of Hoffman
(1950), died.
(AP, 3/22/04)
2004 Mar 28, France's left-wing
opposition bulldozed its way across the country in second-round midterm
regional elections, putting pressure on President Jacques Chirac to
revamp his Cabinet and perhaps even ditch his prime minister due to
widely unpopular economic reforms and rising unemployment.
(AP, 3/28/04)(AP, 3/29/04)
2004 Mar 29, A Lithuanian court
found French rock star Bertrand Cantat (40) guilty of man-slaughter for
the 2003 beating death of his movie-star girlfriend, Marie Trintignant
(41), and sentenced him to 8 years in prison.
(AP, 3/29/04)
2004 Mar 30, French PM Jean-Pierre
Raffarin was spared the ax despite a massive local election defeat, but
ordered to form a new government to push ahead with unpopular social
and economic reforms.
(AP, 3/30/04)
2004 Apr 2, Police in France
captured the elusive former leader of the Basque ETA rebel group as
well as the separatist group's logistics chief.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 8, In France striking
power workers switched off street lights and cut electricity to homes
to protest plans to partially privatize public utilities. Even the
famed Chateau de Versailles lost power.
(AP, 4/8/04)
2004 Apr 23, France closed its
last coal mine.
(AP, 4/23/04)
2004 May 1, Jean-Jacques Laffont
(57), an award-winning French economist and one of the leading figures
in the study of information theory, died in southern France. His books
included "Incentives in Public Decision Making" (1979).
(AP, 5/14/04)
2004 May 13, France and Germany
declared an intention to formulate a joint industrial policy aimed at
creating a framework for mergers and joint ventures.
(Econ, 5/22/04, p.55)
2004 May 18, In France Myriam
Delay, an unemployed mother, stunned a courtroom in the northern French
town of Outreau saying she lied in accusing the 13 people of
pedophilia, one of whom committed suicide behind bars. A week later she
again reversed her testimony: "I was there and I saw everything... We
ruined children's lives.” 10 of 17 defendants were convicted in July. 6
of the 10 convicted were acquitted in 2005.
(AP, 5/20/04)(AP, 5/25/04)(AP, 12/01/05)
2004 May 23, In France a section
of the futuristic, cylindrical passenger terminal at Paris' Charles de
Gaulle airport collapsed, killing 4 people and injuring three.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2004 May 28, French engineers
brought the two central ends of the Millau road viaduct in southwest
France together, completing the span of the highest bridge in the
world. The bridge spans the valley of the Tarn river to carry a
motorway from Clermont-Ferrand to Beziers and establishing a major
north-south axis parallel to the Rhone valley. The $378 million bridge
is expected to open Jan 2005.
(AFP, 5/29/04)(Econ, 1/8/05, p.71)
2004 Jun 1, Michel Dansel, French
intellectual, held a mock funeral ceremony for the verb. His new
233-page book, “Le Train de Nulle Part” (The Train to Nowhere), was
written without verbs.
(WSJ, 7/16/04, p.A1)
2004 Jun 2, Romania’s Pres. Ion
Iliescu unveiled the new Logan sedan, a joint venture between Renault
and Romania’s Dacia. Starting prices were around $6,100. In 2007 nearly
80,000 Logans were sold in western Europe.
(SFC, 6/3/04, C5)(Econ, 5/31/08, SR p.7)
2004 Jun 5, France's first gay
marriage was performed in the southwest city of Bordeaux. On July 27 it
was officially declared void by a court but the two homosexual men
involved immediately said they would appeal the ruling.
(AP, 7/27/04)
2004 Jun 5, French engineering
giant Alstom said a consortium it was leading had signed an
88-million-euro ($107 mil) contract for work on three railway lines in
the suburbs of Algiers.
(AP, 6/6/04)
2004 Jun 16, French power workers
cut electricity to the Eiffel Tower and President Jacques Chirac's
residence in western Paris to protest the government's plans to
partially privatize state utilities in an effort to raise money.
(AP, 6/16/04)
2004 Jun 22, A bus in western
France overturned, killing at least 11 people and seriously injuring up
to three others.
(AP, 6/22/04)
2004 Jun, In Alsace, France,
Pierre Bodein, nicknamed "Pierrot le fou," or "Crazy Pierre," raped,
killed and mutilated two young victims, Jeanne-Marie Kegelin (11) and
Julie Scharsch (14). He also murdered and mutilated Edwige Vallee (38),
and attempted to kidnap two other girls. In 2007 Bodein was convicted
of viciously murdering two girls and a woman and sentenced to life in
prison.
(AP, 7/11/07)
2004 Jul 17, French Defence
Minister Michele Alliot-Marie proposed a defense partnership between 3
North African countries, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia -- and four
southern European countries, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain,
preferably at defense minister level.
(AP, 7/18/04)
2004 Jul 22, French crooner Sacha
Distel (71), whose seductive good looks won him legions of female fans
around the world, died.
(AP, 7/22/04)
2004 Jul, A fake list of public
figures, who allegedly held accounts at a Luxembourg-based clearing
house (Clearstream Banking S.A.) linked to kickbacks on the 1991 sale
of French frigates to Taiwan, was leaked to a French judge. This came
to be known as the 2nd Clearstream affair. In 2001 Clearstream was
accused of money laundering and tax evasion.
(Econ, 7/14/07,
p.56)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearstream)
2004 Jul, A court in Saint-Omer,
northern France, convicted 10 out of 17 defendants on pedophilia
charges relating to the abuse of 18 children between 1995 and 2000. 6
of the 10 convicted were acquitted in 2005.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2004 Aug 3, Henri Cartier-Bresson
(95), French photographer of the decisive moment, died. In 2005 Pierre
Assouline authored “Henri Cartier-Bresson: A Biography.”
(WSJ, 8/5/04, p.A1)(Econ, 8/7/04, p.67)(Econ,
9/3/05, p.75)
2004 Aug 5, In eastern France a
predawn fire swept through an equestrian school, killing seven
teenagers and possibly two adults.
(AP, 8/5/04)
2004 Aug 14, A visibly weak Pope
John Paul II joined thousands of other ailing pilgrims at a cliffside
shrine in Lourdes, France, telling them he shares in their physical
suffering and assuring them the burden is part of God's "wondrous plan."
(AP, 8/14/05)
2004 Aug 19, Amelie Delegrange
(22), from Hanvoile, north of Paris, was battered to death in the
southwest London neighborhood of Twickenham Green after a night out in
a wine bar. In 2006 Levi Bellfield, former nightclub bouncer, faced
trial for her murder and the February, 2003, murder of student Marsha
McDonnell (19). Bellfield was convicted on February 25, 2008 of the two
murders. The following day, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with
a recommendation that he should never be released.
(AFP,
6/9/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Bellfield)
2004 Aug 29, Muslim leaders in
France condemned the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq and
said the government should not capitulate to militant demands to revoke
a law that bans the wearing of Islamic head scarves in schools.
(AP, 8/29/04)
2004 Sep 22, France signaled it
will slash its public overspending next year to come into line with EU
rules in a 2005 budget published today and forecast economic growth of
2.5 percent.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Sep 24, French author
Francoise Sagan (69), who shot to fame with her first novel "Bonjour
Tristesse" at the age of 18 and courted controversy throughout her
life, died. She was a longstanding friend of late President Francois
Mitterrand and was convicted of taking drugs and for tax evasion.
(Reuters, 9/24/04)
2004 Sep 26, A French national was
shot and killed in the Saudi Arabian city of Jiddah.
(AP, 9/26/04)
2004 Sep 24, French author
Francoise Sagan (69), who shot to fame with her first novel "Bonjour
Tristesse" (1954) at the age of 18 and courted controversy throughout
her life, died. She was a longstanding friend of late President
Francois Mitterrand and was convicted of taking drugs and for tax
evasion.
(Reuters, 9/24/04)(SSFC, 9/26/04, p.B5)
2004 Sep, French auto maker
Renault rolled out the no-frills Logan. The midsize sedan was launched
at a cost of $7,254 (€5,700) in emerging markets like Poland. Western
buyers soon clamored for the car. In June, 2005, Renault began
delivering the roomy, unpretentious five-seater to France, Germany, and
Spain.
(AP, 6/25/05)(WSJ, 10/4/06, p.B18)
2004 Oct 2, Two US ships carrying
300 pounds of plutonium were scheduled to dock in Cherbourg, France. A
French nuclear factory planned to transform it into fuel assemblies and
return it next year to Charleston, SC.
(SFC, 10/1/04, p.A15)
2004 Oct 8, Jacques Derrida (74),
one of France's best-known philosophers and the founder of the
deconstructionist school, died of cancer in Paris.
(SSFC, 10/10/04, p.A14)(Econ, 10/23/04, p.89)
2004 Oct 9, French President
Jacques Chirac declared that France was a natural trade partner to
China and, amid a flurry of air, rail and energy deals.
(AP, 10/9/04)
2004 Oct 16, Pierre Salinger (79),
who served as press secretary to US presidents Kennedy and Johnson,
died of a heart attack near his home in Le Thon, France.
(AP, 10/16/05)
2004 Oct 19, In France 2 Muslim
girls who refused to remove their head scarves in class were expelled
from their schools, and two more risked the same fate.
(AP, 10/19/04)
2004 Oct 21, French health
officials announced that a donor whose blood was used to transfuse 10
people and to manufacture medicines has been identified as France's
eighth known victim of the human equivalent of mad cow disease.
(AP, 10/21/04)
2004 Oct 25, Hundreds of angry
French farmers mounted blockades around the country to hold up fuel
shipments in protest at soaring diesel and gasoline prices and to press
their demands for government aid.
(AP, 10/25/04)
2004 Nov 6, Ivory Coast warplanes
bombed French peacekeepers, killing 8 French soldiers and wounding 23,
and French forces responded by shooting down government aircraft.
(AP, 11/6/04)
2004 Nov 7, Machete-waving mobs
looted and burned in Ivory Coast's largest cities, laying siege to a
French military base and searching house to house for French families
after a day of sudden clashes between forces of France and its former
colony. France seized strategic control of Abidjan and deployed new
forces to stop the rampage.
(AP, 11/7/04)(SFC, 11/8/04, p.A3)
2004 Nov 10, France and the UN
began evacuating thousands of French and other expatriates in Ivory
Coast.
(AP, 11/10/04)
2004 Nov 12, It was reported that
the French government plans to merge Airbus parent EADS with Thales,
the country's largest defense company, to create a new European giant
to rival Boeing Co.
(AP, 11/12/04)
2004 Nov 15, The Bank of France
cut its 2004 economic growth forecast, placing further pressure on the
government's budget plans as high oil prices and a weak dollar weigh on
France's outlook.
(AP, 11/15/04)
2004 Nov 15, France concluded its
evacuation efforts in Ivory Coast, where 5,000 Westerners fled a
renewed civil war.
(WSJ, 11/16/04, p.A1)
2004 Nov 24, President Jacques
Chirac arrived in Libya in the first ever visit by a French head of
state.
(AP, 11/24/04)
2004 Nov 25, French President
Jacques Chirac set aside years of acrimony over the bombing of a French
passenger jet in the 1980s and declared a "new chapter" in relations
with Libya.
(AP, 11/25/04)
2004 Nov 28, French Finance
Minister Nicolas Sarkozy took over the Union for a Popular Movement
(UMP), the ruling conservative party at a glitzy American-style
congress. This put him on course to launch a presidential bid and
possibly challenge Jacques Chirac in 2007.
(AP, 11/28/04)(Econ, 11/27/04, p.14)
2004 Nov 29, President Jacques
Chirac's office said French Agriculture Minister Herve Gaymard is to
succeed Nicolas Sarkozy as Finance Minister.
(AP, 11/29/04)
2004 Dec 1, A French appeals court
reduced the suspended prison sentence for former Prime Minister Alain
Juppe in a party financing scandal from 18 to 14 months, and barred him
from elected office for 1 year instead of 10.
(AP, 12/1/04)
2004 Dec 3, In France Liberation's
founding CEO Serge July announced the start of exclusive negotiations
with Banker Edouard de Rothschild over a $27 million capital increase
that would let the banker acquire 37 percent of the popular daily.
(AP, 12/3/04)
2004 Dec 9, The French government
sold an 18.4 percent stake in Air France-KLM, the world's largest
airline, to help reduce the state debt.
(AP, 12/9/04)
2004 Dec 10, In Paris a skating
rink opened on an observation deck of the Eiffel Tower, 188 feet above
the streets.
(SFC, 12/11/04, p.A2)
2004 Dec 14, In southern France a
roadway bridge, hailed as the tallest in the world, was officially
inaugurated.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 16, In France 10 accused
Islamic militants were convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging
from one to 10 years for their roles in a millennium plot to blow up a
Christmas market in the eastern city of Strasbourg on New Year's Eve
2000.
(AP, 12/16/04)
2004 Dec 26, In eastern France a
gas explosion tore through a five-storey apartment building in
Mulhouse, killing 15 people and injuring another 14.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2004 Corinne Maier authored the
French pamphlet “Bounjour Paresse” (Hello Laziness). It was sub-titled
The Art and the Importance of Doing the Least Possible in the
Workplace, and became a bestseller in France.
(Econ, 7/21/07, p.51)(www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5698558/)
2004 John J. Miller and Mark
Molesky authored “Our Oldest Enemy,” an examination of France’s
relations with the US over the last few hundred years.
(WSJ, 10/14/04, p.D7)
2004 Le Figaro, France’s leading
center-right newspaper, was acquired by Dassault, a big defense
company, which also acquired some 70 other titles.
(Econ, 8/7/04, p.44)
2004 The French public health fund
deficit was expected to top $15.7 billion.
(Econ, 7/31/04, p.43)
2004 French retailer Carrefour SA
agreed to buy 13 supermarkets in Poland.
(WSJ, 4/15/08, p.B2)
2005 Jan 1, France was forecast
for 2.4% annual GDP growth with a population at 60.6 million and GDP
per head at $36,630.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.88)
2005 Jan 12, Maud Fontenoy, a
French woman (26), set out in a row boat on a 4,900-mile solo voyage to
Polynesia, hoping to trace Thor Heyerdahl's epic 1947 Pacific crossing
aboard the balsa raft Kon-Tiki.
(AP, 1/14/05)
2005 Jan 18, In France Airbus
unveiled the 840-passenger A380, the world's biggest passenger jet, in
a glitzy ceremony in which the leaders of France, Britain, Germany and
Spain hailed Europe's victory over the US as the new king of the
commercial skies.
(AP, 1/18/05)
2005 Jan 19, Strikes over job cuts
and pay disrupted French rail service and hospitals.
(AP, 1/19/05)
2005 Jan 25, Paris' new memorial
to the Holocaust was inaugurated, with President Chirac bowing before
the wall inscribed with the names of 76,000 Jews sent to Nazi death
camps from France.
(AP, 1/25/05)
2005 Jan 31, France Telecom,
Europe's second-largest telecommunications operator, announced plans to
cut 8,000 jobs in 2005, mostly in France.
(AP, 1/31/05)
2005 Feb 2, French Pres. Jacques
Chirac planned to visit Senegal for the first time in a decade, hoping
to boost ties with a former West African colony at a time when the US
is raising its military profile in the region.
(AP, 2/1/05)
2005 Feb 2, The EU told Italy,
France and Germany, to do more to bring their budgets in balance as
required by the rules of Europe's single currency.
(AP, 2/2/05)
2005 Feb 8, Herve Gaymard,
France's finance minister, announced new measures designed to boost
confidence, stimulate growth and tackle the "scandalously high" 9.9%
jobless rate.
(AP, 2/8/05)
2005 Feb 9, The French National
Assembly approved a reform of the controversial 35-hour working week.
The Socialist measure had been introduced to cut unemployment but is
now blamed by the right for doing exactly the reverse.
(AFP, 2/9/05)
2005 Feb 15, The Falcon 7X, a
business jet designed and built by the French aviation company
Dassault, was displayed for the first time. It was the first plane to
be digitally modeled in 3-dimensions and required no prototype.
(Econ, 6/18/05, p.78)(http://tinyurl.com/lxlgt2)
2005 Feb 22, The EU intends to end
its ban on arms sales to China, French Pres. Jacques Chirac said after
talks with Pres. Bush, who highlighted Washington's security concerns.
(AP, 2/22/05)
2005 Feb 23, French film star
Simone Simon (b.1910) died in Paris.
(AP, 2/23/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon)
2005 Feb 25, French Finance
Minister Herve Gaymard quit over his handling of a scandal about his
state-paid luxury flat that rocked a conservative government as it
forces unpopular cost-cutting measures on a restive nation.
(AP, 2/25/05)
2005 Feb 28, Thierry Breton
arrived for work as France's 4th finance minister in less than a year,
ready to pick up the unfinished business of restoring the French
economy to good health.
(AP, 2/28/05)
2005 Feb, France passed a law to
put an upbeat spin on a painful era, making it mandatory to enshrine in
textbooks the country's "positive role" in its far-flung colonies.
Education Minister Gilles de Robien said in October that textbooks
would not be changed. But the law's detractors want it stricken from
the books, something the minister says only parliament can do.
(AP, 10/21/05)
2005 Mar 1, French journalist
Florence Aubenas, looking pale and distraught, appealed for help on a
video in her first since she went missing in Iraq on Jan. 5.
(AP, 3/1/05)
2005 Mar 1, In Geneva, Switz.,
Edouard Stern, French financier and former Lazard banker, was found
dead in his home. Swiss police later arrested Cecile Brossard (36), his
French lover, who confessed to the sex-related killing of banker
Edouard Stern. During her trial in 2009 she said that she lost control
after Stern called her a whore. On June 18, 2009, Brossard was
sentenced to eight and a half years in prison.
(WSJ, 3/3/05, p.A1)(AP, 3/16/05)(WSJ, 4/14/05,
p.A1)(SFC, 6/15/09, p.A2)(AP, 6/18/09)
2005 Mar 2, France's newly
appointed Finance Minister Thierry Breton pledged to keep a tight lid
on public spending in an effort to rein in the budget deficit.
(AP, 3/2/05)
2005 Mar 3, Alexis von Rosenberg
(82), Baron de Rede, published his memoir: “Alexis: the Memoirs of the
Baron de Rede.” Baron de Rede, the godfather of Paris society, died a
few months later.
(SFC, 3/16/05, p.G10)
2005 Mar 3, In France a trial got
under way in which 66 people were accused of participating in a
pedophilia ring.
(AP, 3/3/05)
2005 Mar 10, Tens of thousands of
French workers marched on Paris and strikes crippled public transport,
embarrassing the government as Olympic officials visited to assess the
city's bid to host the 2012 Games.
(AP, 3/10/05)
2005 Mar 15, A French court gave
the maximum 10-year prison sentence to Djamel Beghal (39), the
ringleader of an alleged plot to send a suicide bomber into the US
Embassy in Paris. The court also sentenced 5 other defendants in the
case to 1-9 year prison terms. Beghal testified that his confession of
a plan to send a suicide bomber into the U.S. Embassy was obtained
under torture after his July 2001 arrest in Dubai, United Arab
Emirates. He was extradited to France two months later and retracted
that confession.
(AP, 3/15/05)
2005 Mar 19, It was reported that
Agence France-Presse has sued Google Inc. for copyright infringement,
alleging that the Internet search engine included AFP headlines, news
summaries and photographs published without permission.
(AFP, 3/19/05)
2005 Mar 23, France presented a
U.N. resolution allowing for the prosecution of Sudanese war crimes
suspects at the International Criminal Court, forcing the US to choose
between accepting a body it opposes or casting a politically damaging
veto.
(AP, 3/23/05)
2005 Mar 24, A French appeals
court upheld the conviction of George Soros (74) for insider trading.
Soros, whose Quantum Fund is worth about $8.3 billion, emigrated to the
US in 1956 and set up Soros Fund Management in 1973. He later made a
fortune on foreign exchange markets and was criticized in some quarters
for speculating on, and arguably encouraging, the collapse of Asian
currencies in the late 1990s.
(AP, 3/24/05)
2005 Apr 4, Chevron announced
plans to purchase Unocal Corp. for $18.4 billion. Chevron’s eventual
acquisition of Unocal included a stake in the Yadana project in
Myanmar, in which Unocal invested in the 1990s along with France’s
Total, Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise and the petroleum Authority of
Thailand. Total with a 31% stake operated the project. The Yadana
project brought in an estimated $969 million to the government
undercutting international sanctions to isolate the regime.
(SFC, 4/5/05, p.A1)(SFC, 10/4/07, p.A10)(SFC,
4/29/08, p.D3)
2005 Apr 15, In France a fire
swept through a Paris hotel used by the city to house needy African
families. 22 people were killed, half of them children.
(AP, 4/16/05)
2005 Apr 27, The world's largest
passenger plane, the Airbus A380, completed a maiden flight in France
that took it over the Pyrenees mountains.
(AP, 4/27/05)
2005 Apr, The decomposing body of
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the Earl of Shaftesbury, was found in a ravine
in the French Riviera, five months after he disappeared from his home
in Cannes. In 2007 his mistress testified that he had been strangled to
death by Mohamed M'Barek, the brother of his wife, Jamila M'Barek.
(AFP, 5/23/07)
2005 May 11, French police swooped
down by helicopter to the luxury Riviera villa of self-exiled Russian
tycoon Boris Berezovsky, seizing documents and computers.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 16, Many French workers
ignored the new national "Day of Solidarity," an extra work day in
place of the annual Pentecost holiday, that was part of the
government's response to a 2003 heat wave that killed 15,000 people.
Under a new law workers give up a holiday, while their employers pay
into a government fund to improve health care for the aged and
handicapped.
(AP, 5/15/05)(WSJ, 5/17/05, p.A10)
2005 May 20, Paul Ricoeur (92), a
French philosopher whose broad interests included biblical
interpretation and the study of human perception, died.
(AP, 5/21/05)
2005 May 23, French anti-terrorist
officers captured three suspected members of the Basque separatist
group ETA in an early morning sweep in southeast France.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 26, In southwestern
France protesting winemakers set fire to train cars, pelted them with
rocks and blocked rail traffic on their way home from demonstrations in
Nimes.
(AP, 5/26/05)
2005 May 29, French voters
rejected the EU's first constitution, dealing a potentially fatal blow
to the charter. In 2007 it was repackaged as the Lisbon treaty.
(AP, 5/30/05)(Econ, 10/10/09, p.28)
2005 May 30, President Jacques
Chirac began a widely expected government shakeup to save face at home
as European Union officials worked to control damage after French
voters rejected the EU's first constitution.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 31, French President
Jacques Chirac appointed Dominique de Villepin, a loyalist who was
France's voice against the Iraq war, as prime minister.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 Jun 2, The US and France
reached a tentative deal to boost the size of the UN peacekeeping
mission in Ivory Coast by nearly 2,000 troops and police to help
enforce a shaky peace deal. Meanwhile thousands fled a region where a
village was burned and 55 people killed by unidentified gunmen.
(AP, 6/3/05)(WSJ, 6/3/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 5, An accident inside the
Frejus Alpine tunnel between France and Italy killed at least two
people. A truck loaded with tires and another carrying glue caught fire
along with four other vehicles.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 Jun 8, French PM Dominique de
Villepin easily won a parliamentary vote of confidence after announcing
a job creation plan worth $5.5 billion.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jun 11, French journalist
Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi assistant were freed and in good health
after nearly five months in captivity in Iraq.
(AP, 6/12/05)
2005 Jun 13, The Paris Air Show
opened.
(Econ, 6/11/05, p.60)
2005 Jun 19, A new, domestic
French low-cost airline, Air Turquoise, took to the skies, opening
budget routes from the northeast city of Reims to Bordeaux, Marseille
and Nice.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 23, The French government
launched the partial privatization of utility company Gaz de France
through an initial public offering of shares worth up to 4.9 billion
euros ($5.9 billion).
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jun 27, French investigators
raided the home and offices of finance minister Thierry Breton. It was
part of a criminal probe sparked by complaints filed by Rhodia
investors Hughes de Lasteyrie du Saillant and Edouard Stern. [see Mar 1]
(WSJ, 6/30/05, p.C1)
2005 Jun 27, France, Germany,
Brazil and Chile called for a tax on airline tickets to help finance
the global fight against poverty.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 28, An international
consortium chose France as the site for the experimental International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a $13 billion fusion power
project that developers hope will one day generate endless, cheap
energy by reproducing the sun's power source and wean the world off
fossil fuels.
(AP, 6/28/05)(Econ, 7/2/05, p.71)
2005 Jul 8, Shares of Gas de
France (GDF), a 20% stake in the state monopoly, began to trade
following the plans of PM Dominique de Villepin. The IPO was expected
to fetch up to $6 billion. A sale of shares in Electricite de France
was set for October.
(Econ, 7/25/05, p.56)
2005 Jul 12, French company
Technip SA said it has been awarded a $800 million contract by Chevron
Corp. to develop its largest Nigerian oil project.
(AP, 7/12/05)
2005 Jul 24, Lance Armstrong
closed out his amazing career with a 7th consecutive Tour de France
victory.
(AP, 7/24/05)
2005 Jul 26, Pernod Ricard SA said
it has completed its takeover of British rival Allied Domecq PLC to
become the world's second-largest wines and spirits maker.
(AP, 7/26/05)
2005 Jul 27, A French court
convicted 62 defendants in a mass pedophilia trial and sentenced some
of them to up to 28 years in prison for their roles in a network that
systematically raped and prostituted children in western France.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 27, France Telecom bought
an 80% stake in Amena, Spain’s 3rd largest mobile telephone operator.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.54)
2005 Jul 30, Wim Duisenberg
(b.1935), Dutch-born first chief of the European Central Bank who
helped create the euro currency, was found dead at a home in Faucon,
France.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Aug 2, France, Britain and
Germany hardened their tone toward Iran, warning that Tehran risked
triggering an international crisis and could face U.N. sanctions if it
follows through with a threat to resume its nuclear program.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, An Air France jet
skidded off a Toronto runway and burst into flames, prompting 309
passengers and crew to slide down escape chutes.
(AP, 8/3/05)
2005 Aug 9, Suez, a French water
and power company, announced a $14 billion purchase of 49.9% of the
shares of Electrabel, a Belgian electricity firm.
(Econ, 8/13/05, p.52)
2005 Aug 9, Francois Dalle (87),
former chief executive of L'Oreal (1957-1984) and credited with
transforming the French cosmetics company into a global giant, died in
Geneva.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Aug 16, In Taize, France,
Brother Roger, the 90-year-old founder of an ecumenical religious
community dedicated to peace and reconciliation, was knifed to death by
an apparently deranged Romanian woman at an evening prayer service
attended by 2,500 people. Brother Roger founded the Taize religious
community in 1940 emphasizing the need for all Christians to come
together in peace, love and reconciliation.
(AP, 8/17/05)(WSJ, 8/18/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 26, Fire raced through a
crowded Paris apartment building housing African immigrants, trapping
residents in their sleep and killing 17 people, most of them believed
to be children.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug 28, The French civil
aviation authority made public for the 1st time a list on its Internet
site of airlines banned to land due to safety reasons. They included:
Air Koryo of North Korea; Air St. Thomas of the U.S. Virgin Islands;
International Air Services of Liberia; Thailand's Phuket Airlines; and
Linhas Aereas de Mocambique and Transairways, both from Mozambique.
(AP, 8/29/05)
2005 Aug 29, In France
firefighters said 7 people, including 4 children, died in an apartment
fire in Paris.
(AP, 8/30/05)
2005 Sep 2, French police evicted
about 140 mainly African squatters, some sobbing or screaming, from two
dilapidated buildings in Paris as authorities began a sweep of
dwellings deemed fire hazards following two deadly blazes.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 4, In France fire ripped
through a high-rise apartment building south of Paris, killing 16
people, two of them children. 4 people were detained in connection with
the suspected arson attack. 3 teenage girls confessed to starting the
fire.
(AP, 9/4/05)(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 9, The body that controls
French winemaking said makers of Bordeaux wines have been told to
reduce their output this year by about 12% because of overproduction
and falling prices.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 12, President Jacques
Chirac, following a weeklong hospital stay, met with India's PM Singh.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 16, The French civil
aviation authority DGAC said it has banned flights by Cameroon Airlines
for an indefinite period, citing safety concerns.
(AFP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 17, A French special
forces soldier was killed and one was seriously wounded when their
vehicle struck a mine while patrolling in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2005 Sep 19, French police probing
a ring which allegedly recruited Muslim fighters for the anti-US
insurgency in Iraq arrested six men in the Paris area.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2005 Sep 22, France announced
financial incentives for parents to have a 3rd child, hoping to boost
its fertility rate by helping people to better juggle the demands of
work and family life.
(AP, 9/22/05)
2005 Sep 28, French police
commandos swooped onto the deck of a ferry seized by striking unionized
sailors in the Mediterranean Sea, recapturing the vessel and steering
it back toward France. Butler Capital Partners, the private investment
firm picked by the government to take over ferry operator SNCM, said
350-400 jobs might be lost in the privatization.
(AP, 9/28/05)
2005 Sep, Tariq Krim (32), French
entrepreneur, launched Netvibes. It provided users the ability to
oversee their favorite blogs from a single page.
(Econ, 2/3/07, p.68)
2005 Oct 1, Riot police forcibly
expelled striking union workers who had blockaded ports in Corsica and
southeastern France for days to protest against the planned
privatization of a state-run ferry operator.
(AP, 10/1/05)
2005 Oct 3, In France a widespread
transit strike expected to touch on nearly all modes of public
transportation began late at night in protest of the center-right
government's economic and labor policies.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 4, French President
Jacques Chirac said that Turkey would need to undergo a "major cultural
revolution" before entering the EU, and he reiterated that France would
hold a referendum on admitting Ankara to the bloc.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, It was reported that
French Attorney Jean-Marc Goldnadel had launched classaction.fr, a
French Web site that lets users sign up to lawsuits online for as
little as 12 euros ($14.50). President Jacques Chirac had
announced the introduction of class action suits earlier in the year.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 5, Americans Robert H.
Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock and Yves Chauvin of France won the Nobel
Prize in chemistry for discoveries that let industry create drugs and
advanced plastics in a more efficient and environmentally friendly way.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 8, In France journalists
reporting on the conflict in Iraq, a humanitarian crisis in Sudan, the
plight of children in Uganda's insurrection and a deadly school hostage
siege in Russia were honored with the annual Bayeux Prize for War
Correspondents.
(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 20, A French couple who
poisoned their five children and then tried to commit suicide in a
desperate bid to escape towering debt was sentenced to prison terms by
a court outside Paris.
(AP, 10/20/05)
2005 Oct 24, An official said more
than a dozen climbers from France and Nepal were swept away in an
avalanche on a Himalayan mountain and believed killed. The mountaineers
were reported missing last week after heavy snowfall hit the Himalayas.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 27, In France 2
teenagers, aged 15 and 17, died by electrocution after they scaled the
wall of an electrical relay station and touched a transformer. The boys
allegedly thought they were being chased by police, but authorities
denied that was the case.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 28, Raymond Hains
(b.1926), French Nouveau Realiste artist, died in Paris. In 1960 he
joined with other artists to found the Nouveau Realistes, whose
emergence came to be seen as the beginning of French Pop Art.
(SFC, 11/15/05, p.B5)
2005 Oct 29, Hundreds of French
youths fought with police and set cars ablaze in a Paris suburb in a
second night of rioting which media said was triggered when two
teenagers were electrocuted while fleeing police.
(AP, 10/29/05)
2005 Oct 30, Police clashed with
angry youths in a Paris suburb for the fourth straight night, with
accusations over a police teargas grenade thrown into a mosque set to
exacerbate the situation further.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Oct 31, French rower Emmanuel
Coindre ended a landmark 129-day solo voyage across the Pacific Ocean
between Japan and the United States, setting a new record, according to
his team.
(AFP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 1, French police fired
tear gas and rioters hurled Molotov cocktails as violence hit a poor
Paris suburb for the fifth straight night in unrest that officials said
had also spread to neighboring towns.
(AFP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 3, Rioting youths shot at
police and firefighters after burning car dealerships and public buses
and hurling rocks at commuter trains. France's government faced growing
pressure to curb the violence, fueled by anger over poor conditions in
suburban Paris housing projects.
(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Nov 4, Small, mobile groups
of youths hit Paris' riot-shaken suburbs with waves of arson attacks,
torching hundreds of cars, as unrest entered its 2nd week and spread to
other towns.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 5, In France
marauding youths torched nearly 900 vehicles, stoned paramedics and
burned a nursery school in a ninth night of violence that spread from
Paris suburbs to towns around France. Authorities arrested more than
250 people overnight.
(AP, 11/5/05)
2005 Nov 6, French President
Jacques Chirac called a security meeting of his top ministers after
urban rioting spread, with arsonists striking from the Mediterranean to
the German border and into central Paris for the first time. On the
10th night of mayhem, some 1,300 vehicles were torched across France
overnight and 349 people were arrested.
(AP, 11/6/05)(AFP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 7, Rioting by French
youths spread to 300 towns overnight, and a 61-year-old man hurt in the
violence died of his wounds, the first fatality in 11 days of unrest.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 8, President Jacques
Chirac declared a state of emergency, paving the way for curfews to be
imposed on riot-hit cities and towns in an extraordinary measure to
halt France's worst civil unrest in decades after 12 nights of violence.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2005 Nov 9, France's storm of
rioting lost strength with a drop of nearly half in the number of car
burnings. But looters and vandals still defied a state of emergency
with attacks on stores, a newspaper warehouse and a subway station.
(AP, 11/9/05)
2005 Nov 10, Violence in France
fell sharply overnight after the government toughened its stance by
imposing emergency measures and ordering deportations of foreigners
involved in riots that have raged for two weeks. The national police
said 8 French police officers had been suspended for their suspected
role in the beating of a young man in a Paris suburb.
(AP, 11/10/05)
2005 Nov 11, Forces tightened
security in central Paris, stationing riot police and bomb squads along
the Champs-Elysees as more than two weeks of arson and vandalism
persisted near the French capital.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 12, Some 3,000 police
fanned out around Paris to prevent any attempts to attack high-profile
targets such as the Eiffel Tower after a 16th straight night of unrest
and arson.
(AP, 11/12/05)
2005 Nov 13, In France police took
212 people into custody overnight. Rioters pelted police with stones in
the historic heart of Lyon, and youths rammed a burning car into a
center for retirees in southern France in a 17th night of urban
violence. The French insurance industry estimated damages so far at
$235 million including $23 million for damage to cars.
(AP, 11/13/05)(SSFC, 11/13/05, p.A19)
2005 Nov 14, The French government
approved a bill to extend a state of emergency for 3 months, giving
itself more policing tools to stop the country's worst civil unrest
since the 1960s. Some 271 cars were burned overnight.
(AP, 11/14/05)(SFC, 11/14/05, p.A10)
2005 Nov 15, Jose Bove, a militant
French farmer best known for ransacking a half-built McDonald's, was
sentenced to four months in prison for destroying a field of
genetically modified corn planted by an American seed company in
southern France.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 17, French police
declared the all-clear after three weeks of rioting which has left the
government stunned, bruised and casting around for explanations.
(AFP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 17, France released its
annual Beaujolais Nouveau from the 2005 harvest. The annual release is
made every 3rd Thursday in November.
(SFC, 11/22/05, p.F2)
2005 Nov 21, France's PM Villepin
pledged to find more jobs for youths from poor suburbs, where unrest
continued to simmer and a high school guard suffered a fatal heart
attack trying to extinguish blazing cars.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 22, French President
Jacques Chirac called for negotiations to end a nationwide rail strike
that caused commuter chaos and posed a new threat to his government,
just days after urban riots abated.
(Reuters, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 22, French union leaders
decided to recommend an end to a strike that disrupted French train
service, saying they were satisfied with concessions offered by the
national rail operator SNCF.
(AP, 11/22/05)
2005 Nov 23, France's Cabinet
approved a plan to put a tax on airline tickets starting next year to
finance efforts against poverty and disease in the developing world.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 27, Doctors in France
performed the world's first partial face transplant on a woman
disfigured by a dog bite; Isabelle Dinoire received the lips, nose and
chin of a brain-dead woman in a 15-hour operation.
(AP, 11/27/06)
2005 Nov 29, France's lower house
of parliament overwhelmingly approved a tough new anti-terrorism bill
that, among other measures, would increase the use of video
surveillance and allow police more time to question terror suspects.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 30, French doctors
performed the world’s 1st partial face transplant. They operated on a
woman (38) disfigured by a dog bite.
(SFC, 12/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 2, African leaders and
French President Jacques Chirac converged on Mali for a two-day summit
expected to focus on Africa's conflict hotspots, immigration and the
problems of African youth.
(AFP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 4, Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao arrived in France for a four-day visit. The Chinese government
and the European aircraft manufacturing consortium Airbus signed a
cooperation agreement at a public ceremony in Toulouse that may pave
the way for the opening of an aircraft assembly plant in China.
(AFP, 12/04/05)
2005 Dec 5, France's highest
administrative body ruled that Sikhs can wear their turbans in drivers'
license photos, overturning an earlier denial of a license to a Sikh
who refused to take off his turban for the photo.
(AP, 12/06/05)
2005 Dec 10, The Petit Palais, a
long forgotten gem among Paris museums, reopened after an $84 million
renovation that has restored the full splendor of a structure
originally built for the 1900 World's Fair.
(AP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 10-2005 Dec 11, Hundreds
of French youths smashed shop windows, ignited trash cans and pelted
police with bottles through the night to protest against a ban on a
rave party they planned in the western city of Rennes.
(Reuters, 12/11/05)
2005 Dec 12, French
counterterrorism agents, some heavily armed and wearing black hoods,
raided homes and Internet cafes in a sweep against a suspected Islamic
network, arresting more than 20 suspects.
(AP, 12/12/05)
2005 Dec 14, The French government
said Eiffag SA, Vinci SA and Spain’s Abertis Infraestructuras SA will
buy its stakes in 3 toll-road companies raising $17.7 billion to help
cut France’s national debt.
(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 15, French
counterterrorism agents arrested three people suspected of belonging to
a terror group with "indirect links" to al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi. Agents seized guns, ammunition, dynamite and other
weapons in a probe of suspected Islamic militants who officials said
use robberies to fund terror groups.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 15, French and Italian
authorities said European police have broken up the biggest-ever
illegal immigration ring targeting Britain by arresting dozens of
suspects believed to have helped smuggle "thousands" of people into
that country.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 20, France's antitrust
regulator slapped a 14.4 million euros ($17.2 million) fine on Buena
Vista Home Entertainment Inc., a unit of Walt Disney Co., and three
French retailers for fixing home video prices between 1995 and 1998.
(AP, 12/20/05)
2005 Dec 22, France's parliament
approved an anti-terrorism bill that will boost the use of video
surveillance and allow police more time to question terror suspects.
(AP, 12/22/05)
2005 Dec 23, A French military
tribunal opened an investigation into allegations that French
peacekeepers facilitated attacks on ethnic minority Tutsis during the
1994 genocide of more than half a million Rwandans.
(AP, 12/23/05)
2005 Dec 29, France reported a
second death from freezing temperatures as blizzards swept through
northern and central Europe, forcing flight cancellations at Prague
airport and cutting power lines and rail links in Scandinavia.
(AP, 12/29/05)
2005 Sir Alistair Horne, British
historian, authored “La Belle France,” an sweeping overview of French
history.
(WSJ, 8/23/05, p.D8)
2005 Colin Jones authored “Paris:
The Biography of a City.”
(Econ, 4/23/05, p.80)
2005 Frederic Mitterand (b.1947),
the nephew of former French Pres. Francois Mitterand, authored his
autobiographical novel “The Bad Life” (French: La mauvaise vie), which
became a best seller. In the book he details his "delight" whilst
visiting the male brothels of Bangkok, and writes, "I got into the
habit of paying for boys ... The profusion of young, very attractive
and immediately available boys put me in a state of desire I no longer
needed to restrain or hide."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Mitterrand)
2006 Jan 4, French Interior
Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said France will create a special police force
to ensure security for railway passengers after a band of marauding
youths robbed and sexually assaulted train travelers Jan 1 in southeast
France.
(AP, 1/4/06)
2006 Jan 5, In France a
76-year-old performance artist was arrested after attacking Marcel
Duchamp's (1917) "Fountain," a porcelain urinal, with a hammer at
the Pompidou Center.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 6, An Indian Supreme
Court panel accused France of violating an international treaty on
hazardous waste movement by sending an asbestos-laden warship to be
scrapped in an Indian shipyard.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 14, Egypt and France were
locked in legal wrangling over a decommissioned aircraft carrier
containing asbestos, leaving the French warship stranded off the
Egyptian coast for the third day running.
(AFP, 1/14/06)
2006 Jan 16, In Strasbourg,
France, demonstrators fought with police and smashed windows at the
European Parliament building during a protest over a proposal to make
port operations in the European Union more competitive.
(AP, 1/16/06)
2006 Jan 16, A US-registered
private jet crashed in the French Alps outside Bourdeau and 4 people
were killed.
(AP, 1/17/06)
2006 Jan 19, Pres. Chirac said
France would be ready to use nuclear weapons against any state that
carried out a terrorist attack against it, reaffirming the need for its
nuclear deterrent.
(AP, 1/19/06)
2006 Jan 21, Ilan Halimi (23), a
mobile phone salesman in northeast Paris, was kidnapped. Ransom demands
soon followed. He was found 3 weeks later naked, handcuffed and covered
with burn marks near railroad tracks in the Essonne region south of
Paris. He died en route to a hospital. On Feb 20 a judge placed six men
and a woman under investigation for the alleged plot to kidnap and kill
on religious, racial or ethnic motives.
(AP, 2/20/06)
2006 Jan 29, Avalanches swept away
skiers and at least one hiker in the French Alps, killing five people
over the weekend.
(AP, 1/29/06)
2006 Jan 31, French PM Dominique
de Villepin made a televised address urging French and other European
chief executives to be better organized to resist attacks by foreign
companies. The statement was made in response to the takeover of
Arcelor by Mittal Steel.
(Econ, 2/4/06, p.56)
2006 Feb 3, BNP Paribas, France’s
2nd largest bank by assets, declared that it was buying a 48% stake in
Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), Italy’s 6th largest bank, and that it
would bid for the rest.
(Econ, 2/11/06, p.70)
2006 Feb 13, Ilan Halimi (23), a
young Jewish man, was killed in a Paris suburb after being kidnapped on
Jan 21 and tortured for 24 days. The trial of a self-proclaimed "gang
of barbarians" accused of killing him went on trial in 2009. Among the
27 defendants was the girl who is alleged to have been used as bait to
capture Halimi and young men accused of taking part in the abduction
and guarding the captive. Youssouf Fofana, the leader of the
"barbarians," fled to the Ivory Coast but was extradited to France on
March 4, 2006. On July 10, 2009, a Paris court convicted Fofana (28)
for the kidnapping, torture and murder Halimi and sentenced him to life
in prison, a verdict that drew a thumbs-up sign from Fofana. 24 others,
including eight women, also were found guilty in the kidnapping,
torture and murder of Ilan Halimi.
(AP, 4/29/09)(AP, 7/11/09)
2006 Feb 15, President Jacques
Chirac ordered the Clemenceau, a decommissioned aircraft carrier, to
return to France after a top administrative court suspended its
transfer to India.
(AP, 2/15/06)
2006 Feb 17, French President
Jacques Chirac has arrived for his first visit to Thailand as head of
state, with Paris hoping to secure lucrative contracts in one of the
most dynamic countries in the region.
(AFP, 2/17/06)
2006 Feb 19, French President
Jacques Chirac arrived in India for a whistle-stop visit aimed at
bolstering trade and civilian nuclear cooperation with the emerging
economic powerhouse.
(AP, 2/19/06)
2006 Feb 19, India and France both
confirmed their first outbreak of the deadly strain of bird flu among
fowl. Health officials and farm workers in western India began
slaughtering a half-million birds to check the spread of the disease.
(AP, 2/19/06)
2006 Feb 19, India's private
Kingfisher Airlines signed a deal to purchase 15 French ATR 72-500
aircraft for 270 million dollars, with the option to buy another 20.
Kingfisher began operations in May and has a 7.6 percent share of the
domestic market.
(AP, 2/19/06)
2006 Feb 24, Japan suspended all
French poultry imports and threatened a similar ban on the Netherlands
following reported cases of H5N1 bird flu.
(Reuters, 2/25/06)
2006 Feb 24, French legal
authorities refused to extradite to Lebanon Zouheir Mohammad Assediq,
an ex-Syrian intelligence officer, to answer questions about the murder
of former Lebanese PM Rafiq el-Hariri.
(AFP, 2/26/06)
2006 Feb 27, France began
vaccinating 300,000 domestic fowl against bird flu.
(WSJ, 2/28/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 4, The French the defense
ministry said a French special forces officer was killed in clashes
with Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan. This was the second French
soldier to be killed in action in Afghanistan.
(AFP, 3/4/06)
2006 Mar 4, Youssef Fofana, the
suspected leader of a gang accused of torturing to death a young Jewish
man near Paris, was extradited from the Ivory Coast to France.
(AP, 3/4/06)
2006 Mar 5, French President
Jacques Chirac on a trip to Saudi Arabia preached greater tolerance and
respect after the publication of satirical cartoons of the Prophet
Mohammad a month ago whipped up protests around the world.
(AP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 6, France's highest
administrative body ruled that Sikhs must remove their turbans for
driver's license photos, calling it a question of public security and
not a restriction on freedom of religion.
(AP, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 7, In France protesters
opposed to a government plan to reduce joblessness by making it easier
to fire young workers rallied throughout the country, disrupting
airports, schools and the Paris Metro.
(AP, 3/7/06)
2006 Mar 8, French government
attempts to stop Internet users downloading music and movies ratcheted
up a notch when Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy blasted the
widespread practice as theft.
(AFP, 3/8/06)
2006 Mar 9, The French parliament,
despite protests by students and unions, enacted a much-contested law
to reduce youth unemployment by using contract jobs.
(AP, 3/10/06)
2006 Mar 9, In France Christophe
Fauviau (46), a father who drugged his children's tennis opponents
leading to one player's death, was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Mar 11, Police stormed
France's famed Sorbonne University to dislodge students occupying the
building in protest of a new national employment measure, hours after
the demonstrators hurled furniture and ladders from the landmark's
windows.
(AP, 3/11/06)
2006 Mar 15, In France a suspected
gangland-style car explosion killed one man and injured another on a
highway north of Paris.
(AP, 3/15/06)
2006 Mar 18, As many as 1.5
million people took to the streets of French cities in a show of
strength over a contested new labor law, the government's First
Employment Contract (CPE), as police deployed in force in Paris to head
off the risk of violence. An open-ended contract for under 26-year-olds
that can be terminated within the first two years without explanation,
the CPE is supposed to encourage employers to take on young staff by
removing some of the financial risks involved. Police made 170 arrests.
(AP, 3/18/06)(Econ, 3/25/06, p.53)
2006 Mar 21, Some 30% of French
people consider themselves at least somewhat racist, according to a
report submitted to the government, prompting concerns that racism is
becoming socially acceptable.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 22, Pierre Clostermann
(85), French fighter pilot and WW II hero, died. In 1948 he published
the story of his exploits under the title “Le Grand Cirque.” The
English version was titled “The Big Show.”
(Econ, 4/8/06, p.85)
2006 Mar 28, Some 1-3 million
protesters poured onto France's streets and absent workers hobbled
transport services in the first nationwide strike against a new labor
law for youths, increasing pressure on the embattled PM to withdraw the
contested measure.
(AP, 3/28/06)(Econ, 4/1/06, p.22)
2006 Mar 28, It was reported that
France produced 78% of its electricity from nuclear power.
(WSJ, 3/28/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 31, French President
Jacques Chirac offered to soften a labor law that makes it easier to
fire young workers, but the student and labor leaders who have
organized nationwide strikes rejected his compromise and repeated calls
for the measure's repeal.
(AP, 3/31/06)
2006 Mar, A French school ranking
by Le Figaro, based on the 2005 school-leaving exam, indicated that the
all but one of the top 29 schools were private.
(Econ, 3/11/06, p.48)
2006 Apr 2, Alcatel SA and Lucent
Technologies Inc. said that the French telecom equipment maker would
acquire its US rival. The deal valued Lucent at about $13.5 billion
(11.1 billion euros) in a stock swap that would form a major new global
player. Headquarters would be in Paris and about 8,800 jobs would be
cut.
(AP, 4/2/06)(Econ, 4/8/06, p.63)
2006 Apr 4, In France a nationwide
strike shut down the Eiffel Tower and snarled air and rail travel for
the second time in a week while students barricaded themselves in
schools to protest a jobs measure that has riven the country and put
the government in crisis mode.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 5, In France
demonstrators blocked roads, rail lines and mail delivery trucks in a
second straight day of protests to demand the repeal of a divisive jobs
law, while unions vowed they would not compromise in talks with
President Jacques Chirac's ruling party on the issue.
(AP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 6, Students protesting a
new labor law put more pressure on France's embattled government by
blocking roads, trains and a convoy of parts heading to the factory
that builds the world's largest airliner.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 10, French President
Jacques Chirac threw out part of a youth labor law that triggered
massive protests and strikes, bowing to intense pressure from students
and unions and dealing a blow to his loyal premier in a bid to end the
crisis.
(AP, 4/10/06)
2006 Apr 12, France's lower house
of parliament approved a compromise youth job plan to replace a measure
that triggered nationwide protests and plunged the country into crisis.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 17, Jean Bernard
(b.1907), French doctor, died. His research on blood disease helped to
found the discipline of hematology.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 29, It was reported that
just over 8% of workers in France belonged to a trade union compared
with 12% in America and nearly 30% in Britain.
(Econ, 4/29/06, p.54)
2006 Apr, France released 2
Slovenian brown bears in the Pyranees and planned to add five more to
boost genetic diversity.
(Econ, 5/13/06, p.60)
2006 May 3, Britain and France
introduced a UN Security Council resolution demanding that Iran abandon
its uranium enrichment program, possibly setting the stage for
sanctions if Tehran does not comply.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 12, Spain's Banco Bilbao
Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) agreed to the French bank BNP Paribas'
purchase of its 14.75-percent stake in Italy's Banca Nazionale del
Lavoro (BNL), saying it will reap 567 million euros (731 million
dollars) in capital gains from the sale.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, More than 11,000
people marched through Paris to protest a bill that would stiffen rules
for immigrants in France and give authorities power to choose who can
enter.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 16, France's PM Dominique
de Villepin was in the firing line as parliament debated a no
confidence motion filed by the opposition over the Clearstream dirty
tricks scandal. Jean-Luis Gergorin, a senior executive at EADS, was
later identified as the anonymous informer who tried to link important
politicians to secret bank accounts in Luxembourg.
(AP, 5/16/06)(Econ, 5/27/06, p.63)
2006 May 29, French Agriculture
Minister Dominique Bussereau ruled out changes to the EU's system of
farm subsidies, saying he would prefer that the Doha trade talks fail
instead.
(AFP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 31, In France youths
torched a dozen cars and hurled stones at police in a second night of
violence in the troubled Paris suburbs, raising memories of rioting
that rocked the nation last year.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 May 31, Greenpeace said
nuclear waste from a storage facility is seeping into groundwater in
the Champagne region of France and threatening vineyards that produce
the sparkling wine.
(AP, 5/31/06)
2006 Jun 1, The NYSE under John
Thain agreed to acquire Paris-based Euronext NV, Europe’s 2nd largest
stock exchange, for $10 billion.
(SFC, 6/2/06, p.A3)
2006 Jun 6, The Spanish interior
ministry said that 67 suspects had been arrested for accessing child
porn on the Internet over the past five days. The international police
operation arrested 38 in France, 10 in Spain, 9 in Slovakia, 7 in
Belgium and 3 in the Netherlands.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 10, Justine
Henin-Hardenne won the French Open, beating Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-4,
6-4.
(AP, 6/10/07)
2006 Jun 13, European Aeronautic
Defense and Space (EADS), the parent company of Airbus, announced that
its new 555-seat airliner would be delayed up to 7 months.
(Econ, 6/24/06, p.69)
2006 Jun 14, A French court handed
down prison terms ranging from six months to 10 years for 25 Islamic
radicals convicted of planning to carry out attacks on the Eiffel Tower
and other targets in Paris. All but one had been accused of helping
Islamic fighters in Chechnya.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 14, France's highest
court upheld George Soros' conviction for insider trading in a case
dating back nearly 20 years, and the billionaire investor vowed to
fight the ruling at the European Court of Human Rights.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 20, In France Pres.
Chirac inaugurated the new, $293 million Musee du Quai Branly, designed
by Jean Nouvel.
(Econ, 6/17/06, p.88)
2006 Jun 20, In Spain and France
12 people, including one of the founders of the Basque separatists ETA,
were arrested in pre-dawn raids in a crackdown on illegal financing of
the armed group.
(AFP, 6/20/06)
2006 Jan 28, Maurice Lever
(b.1935), French writer, died in Paris of cancer. His work included a
biography of Marquis de Sade (1994), “Bloody Rumors” (1993), a history
of violent news stories, and “Scepter and Bauble” (1909), a history of
court jesters.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.E2)(www.imdb.com/name/nm1927840/bio)
2006 Jul 1, Thousands of people
marched through Paris to protest plans to tighten restrictions on
immigration and step up deportations of immigrant families with
children who are in the country illegally.
(AP, 7/2/06)
2006 Jul 1, The 3-week Tour de
France began. 4 favorites, including Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich, were
barred with 5 others from the cycling competition after their names
popped up in a Spanish probe of a network that allegedly supplied
riders and other athletes with banned drugs and doping know-how.
(AP, 6/30/06)(SFC, 7/1/06, p.D1)
2006 Jul 2, EADS's French co-chief
executive Noel Forgeard and Airbus's German head Gustav Humbert
tendered their resignations over delays to deliveries of the A380
superjumbo that has wiped billions of euros (dollars) off EADS's share
price. Louis Gallois became the new EADS co-CEO; Christian Strieff was
named the new president and CEO of Airbus.
(AFP, 7/2/06)(WSJ, 7/3/06, p.A2)
2006 Jul 4, A French court
convicted respected wine exporter Georges Duboeuf Wines of fraud after
one of its wineries mixed a variety of grapes in its Beaujolais.
(AP, 7/4/06)
2006 Jul 5, A France court
convicted 38 people in a vast party financing scandal centered on Paris
City Hall from 1987 to 1993, when Jacques Chirac was mayor.
(AP, 7/5/06)
2006 Jul 5, France beat Portugal
1-0 and will play Italy for Soccer’s World Cup on July 9.
(WSJ, 7/6/06, p.A1)
2006 Jul 9, Italy beat France 5-3
in a shootout following a 1-1 tie in the World Cup final. Zinedine
Zidane, captain of the French team, was sent off for head-butting an
Italian player.
(SFC, 7/10/06, p.A1)(Econ, 7/15/06, p.49)
2006 Jul 17, EAD’s Airbus, reeling
from a management shakeup that followed delays in its flagship
superjumbo jet program, unveiled a long-awaited revamp of its mid-sized
A350 at the Farnborough Air Show in England.
(AP, 7/17/06)(WSJ, 7/17/06, p.A3)
2006 Jul 19, Director Gerard Oury
(87), a cultural icon of France whose decades-old comedies remain hits
today, died at his Riviera home. His top hits include the 1973 movie
"Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob" (The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob).
(AP, 7/20/06)
2006 Jul 21, It was reported that
Saudi Arabia has ordered 76 artillery howitzers from the French
armaments manufacturer Giat Industries as defense minister Crown Prince
Sultan bin Abdul Aziz completed a two-day visit.
(AFP, 7/21/06)
2006 Jul 23, US cyclist
Floyd Landis (31) won the 3-week, 2,267-mile Tour de France 57 seconds
ahead of Oscar Pereiro of Spain. Reports on July 27 Landis said had
tested positive for the male sex hormone testosterone. In 2007
arbitrators upheld results that showed he had used synthetic
testosterone and that he must forfeit his title.
(SFC, 7/24/06, p.D1)(Reuters, 7/27/06)(WSJ, 9/21/07,
p.A1)
2006 Jul 27, French health
officials said 64 people have died in a heat wave that has gripped the
country for nearly two weeks.
(AP, 7/27/06)
2006 Jul 27, Floyd Landis'
stunning Tour de France victory just four days earlier was thrown into
question when he tested positive for high levels of testosterone during
the race. Landis denied cheating.
(AP, 7/27/07)
2006 Jul 31, France's agriculture
minister condemned the destruction of two fields of genetically
modified corn by activists in southwestern France.
(AP, 7/31/06)
2006 Aug 2, A Paris commercial
court granted Eurotunnel protection from creditors, enabling the
operator of the Channel Tunnel to freeze payments on its debt mountain
of 9.0 billion euros (11.5 billion dollars).
(AFP, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 3, A French law that
allows regulators to force Apple Computer Inc. to make its iPod player
and iTunes online store compatible with rival offerings went into
effect.
(AP, 8/3/06)
2006 Aug 3, French health
officials said the sweltering temperatures that gripped Europe last
month killed 112 people.
(AP, 8/3/06)
2006 Aug 5, The US and France
reached agreement on a UN Security Council resolution aimed at ending
the fighting between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas.
(AP, 8/5/06)
2006 Aug 5, Floyd Landis was fired
by his team and the Tour de France no longer considered him its
champion after his second doping sample tested positive for
higher-than-allowable levels of testosterone. Landis maintained his
innocence.
(AP, 8/5/07)
2006 Aug 15, French Interior
Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said nearly 30,000 illegal immigrants with
school-age children applied for French residency under a special
government offer, and about 6,000 will get it.
(AP, 8/15/06)
2006 Aug 17, President Jacques
Chirac announced that France will immediately double to 400 troops its
contingent in the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon.
(AP, 8/17/06)
2006 Aug 19, French soldiers
landed in Lebanon, the first reinforcements for an expanded UN
peacekeeping force tasked with keeping the truce in the
Israel-Hezbollah conflict. About 50 French troops, military engineers,
were to prepare for the arrival of 200 more soldiers expected next week.
(AP, 8/19/06)
2006 Aug 20, In northern France a
fire broke out in a run-down apartment building that mainly housed
immigrants, killing five people and injuring 10.
(AP, 8/20/06)
2006 Aug 24, France said it was
ready to send an extra 1,600 troops to bolster a revamped U.N. force
for Lebanon, bringing the total French contingent to 2,000 and making
it easier to recruit other nations.
(Reuters, 8/24/06)
2006 Aug 31, Sexus Politicus, by
co-authors Christophe Dubois and Christophe Deloire, was published in
France. It revealed decades of philandering, adultery and seduction at
the heart of the French state, with politicians of all colors
apparently sharing the same passion for extra-marital sex.
(AP, 8/31/06)
2006 Sep 4, In France the Airbus
A380, the world's largest passenger jet, took off with a full load of
passengers for the first time. Carrying 474 Airbus employees, the
308-ton jet left from Toulouse, southern France, on the first of four
test flights.
(AP, 9/4/06)
2006 Sep 5, French oil and gas
field surveyor Geophysique said it will buy US rival Veritas for $3.1
billion in cash and stock, establishing a major new global player in
the booming oil exploration industry.
(AP, 9/5/06)
2006 Sep 10, Armed Yemeni
tribesmen kidnapped four French tourists in the east of the country to
press for their relatives to be released from jail.
(AP, 9/10/06)
2006 Sep 14, Current and former
French officials specializing in terrorism said that an al-Qaida
alliance with the Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known by
its French initials GSPC, was cause for concern. Al-Qaida's No. 2,
Ayman al-Zawahri, announced the "blessed union" in a video posted this
week on the Internet to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11
attacks in the United States.
(AP, 9/15/06)
2006 Sep 20, Henri Jayer (84), a
master of balanced pinot noir, died in Dijon, France. He was viewed by
many connoisseurs to be the finest Burgundy winemaker of his generation.
(AP, 9/21/06)
2006 Sep 22, France and Russia
signed deals in the transport and aviation sectors worth 10 billion
dollars following a summit between Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin and his
French counterpart Jacques Chirac.
(AP, 9/23/06)
2006 Sep 22, Yvan Keller (46),
arrested a week earlier in France’s eastern city of Mulhouse in
connection with a robbery, hanged himself while in custody. Mr. Keller
admitted to killing dozens of elderly women who lived alone, all within
40 miles of Mulhouse, in the border region straddling France,
Switzerland and Germany, starting in 1989.
(www.newagebd.com/2006/sep/27/inat.html)
2006 Sep 23, Russian Pres.
Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Jacques Chirac joined German
Chancellor Angela Merkel for a three-way informal summit in a chateau
in Compiegne.
(AP, 9/23/06)
2006 Sep 27, France ended a
decades-old system of inequality by bringing lagging pensions of war
veterans from former colonies into line with those of their French
counterparts whose retirement payment is two-thirds higher. The
decision was not retroactive.
(AP, 9/28/06)
2006 Sep 27, A team of French
doctors said they successfully operated on a man in near zero-gravity
conditions on a flight looping in the air like a roller coaster to
mimic weightlessness.
(AP, 9/27/06)
2006 Sep 29, Segolene Royal, who
tops polls as the Socialist choice to run for French president next
spring, formally announced her candidacy.
(AP, 9/29/06)
2006 Sep 30, André
Schwarz-Bart (b.1928), French novelist of Polish-Jewish origins, died
in Guadeloupe. His books included the novel “The Last of the Just”
(1960), based on the Jewish teaching that the fate of the world lies
with 36 just men.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Schwarz-Bart)(WSJ, 12/9/06, p.P12)
2006 Oct 3, A top Iranian nuclear
official proposed that France create a consortium to enrich uranium in
Iran, saying that could satisfy international demands for outside
oversight of Tehran's nuclear program.
(AP, 10/3/06)
2006 Oct 7, In France the press
advocacy group Reporters Without Borders and the northwest town of
Bayeux unveiled a memorial to some 2,000 journalists and other media
workers killed in the line of duty around the world since World War II.
(AP, 10/7/06)
2006 Oct 8, France said it would
ban smoking in public places as of Feb 1, 2007. The ban would extend to
restaurants, bars and clubs at the start of 2008.
(WSJ, 10/7/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 9, Christian Streiff, the
head of Airbus, resigned after 99 days on the job due to clashed over
operational powers with the EADS board of directors. EADS named Louis
Gallois, a co-chief executive officer to replace him.
(SFC, 10/10/06, p.E3)
2006 Oct 11, In northeastern
France a passenger train collided with an oncoming freight train,
killing at least five people and injuring 16.
(AP, 10/11/06)
2006 Oct 12, French lawmakers
approved a bill making it a crime to deny that the 1915-1919 mass
killings of Armenians in Turkey amounted to genocide. It was thought
unlikely that Jacques Chirac’s government would forward the bill to the
Senate.
(AP, 10/12/06)(SFC, 10/13/06, p.A21)
2006 Oct 13, The French state rail
network said some 1,200 claims for compensation have been leveled
against the rail network for its role in helping transport people to
Nazi camps during World War II.
(AP, 10/13/06)
2006 Oct 13, The EU condemned a
French bill making it a crime to deny that the World War I-era killing
of Armenians in Turkey was genocide, calling it unhelpful at a critical
stage in the Muslim country's EU entry talks.
(AP, 10/14/06)
2006 Oct 14, French leader Jacques
Chirac told Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan he is sorry French lawmakers
approved a bill making it a crime to deny Armenians were victims of
genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks.
(Reuters, 10/15/06)
2006 Oct 25, French President
Jacques Chirac and a delegation of French executives traveled to China
in hopes of expanding trade with one of the world's largest economies.
(AP, 10/25/06)
2006 Oct 26, In France youths
forced passengers off three buses and set the vehicles on fire
overnight in suburban Paris, raising tensions ahead of the first
anniversary of the riots that engulfed France's rundown, heavily
immigrant neighborhoods.
(AP, 10/26/06)
2006 Oct 27, French President
Jacques Chirac called for closer ties with China in telecommunications,
nuclear power and other fields after Airbus's decision to open a
Chinese aircraft assembly line.
(AP, 10/27/06)
2006 Oct 27, Xavier Niel (39), one
of France's most high-profile Internet entrepreneurs, was handed a
suspended jail sentence for embezzling funds from a sex shop that
served as a front for prostitution. He was also fined 250,000 euros
($320,000) for embezzling money from the Roxane sex shop in the eastern
city of Strasbourg.
(AP, 10/27/06)
2006 Oct 27, In France 6 police
officers suffered minor injuries and 25 people were arrested in
scattered violence across the country on the first anniversary of the
start of nationwide riots.
(AP, 10/28/06)
2006 Oct 28, In France marauding
youths torched hundreds of vehicles overnight and into the day. In
Marseilles Mama Galledou (26) was on the bus with some 10 other
passengers when it was forcibly boarded by at least three teenagers
wearing hoods. They doused the inside of the vehicle with flammable
liquid and set it on fire before running away. Galledou was badly burnt
and on the verge of death.
(AFP, 10/29/06)
2006 Oct 31, France's Defense
Minister ordered that 105 secret intelligence reports be handed over to
a judge investigating allegations that Paris helped Rwanda's former
Hutu government massacre ethnic Tutsis in a 1994 genocide.
(Reuters, 11/2/06)
2006 Nov 2, In St. Maarten 4
French nationals were convicted of beating two gay American tourists on
Guadeloupe and were sentenced to between six months and six years in
prison.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Nov 3, French conductor Paul
Mauriat (81), whose arrangement of "Love is Blue" topped US charts in
the 1960s, died in Perpignan, France.
(AP, 11/3/07)
2006 Nov 4, Swathes of Austria,
Belgium, Croatia, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands
and went dark for up to an hour in the late evening as cold Germans
rushing to switch on heaters sucked up electricity from Europe's
interconnected networks.
(AP, 11/5/06)
2006 Nov 7, French authorities
handed over to Spain Jose Javier Arizcuren Ruiz, a former leading
member of the armed Basque separatist group ETA, who police blame for
killing at least 15 people and planning several major attacks. Ruiz,
also known as "Kantauri," was arrested in Paris in 1999 and served time
in a French prison on charges of being a member of an armed group.
(AP, 11/7/06)
2006 Nov 7, A shipload of toxic
waste arrived in France for disposal. It was collected from the Ivory
Coast following illegal dumping last August.
(WSJ, 11/8/06, p.A1)
2006 Nov 7, In France Jean-Jacques
Servan-Schreiber (1924), who co-founded the French newsweekly L'Express
(1953) and encouraged Europe to emulate the United States, died. In
1967 Servan-Schreiber published a popular essay called "The American
Challenge," which detailed the mechanisms of an economic power struggle
brewing between Europe and the US.
(AP, 11/8/06)
2006 Nov 13, France said it will
aid the Central African Republic's army with logistics and aerial
reconnaissance in its fight against rebels in the northeast of the
country.
(AFP, 11/13/06)
2006 Nov 15, Turkey suspended
military relations with France in a dispute over whether the mass
killings of Armenians early in the last century amounted to genocide.
(AP, 11/16/06)
2006 Nov 16, In France Segolene
Royal (53) overwhelmingly won the backing of the main opposition
Socialist Party in her bid to become France's first female president.
(AP, 11/17/06)
2006 Nov 16, Spain, France and
Italy unveiled a five-point Middle East peace initiative, calling
Israeli-Palestinian violence intolerable and saying that Europe must
take a lead role in ending the conflict.
(AP, 11/16/06)
2006 Nov 20, French prosecutors
approved international arrest warrants for 9 Rwandan officials in
connection with the 1994 attack that killed Rwanda's president,
triggering the central African country's genocide. Magistrate
Jean-Louis Bruguiere also said there was evidence that "Paul Kagame and
members of his military staff devised the operation" to destroy Rwandan
President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane.
(Reuters, 11/21/06)
2006 Nov 21, In Paris, France,
nations representing half the world's population signed a long-awaited,
$12.8 billion pact for a nuclear fusion reactor that could
revolutionize global energy use for future generations. The
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project by the
US, the EU, China, India, Russia, Japan and South Korea will attempt to
combat global warming by harnessing the fusion that runs the sun,
creating an alternative to polluting fossil fuels. The project under
the direction of Kaname Ikeda of Japan will be built in Cadarache in
the southern French region of Provence and is expected to create about
10,000 jobs and take about eight years to build. The project was first
proposed by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985.
(AP, 11/21/06)(Econ, 11/25/06, p.61)
2006 Nov 23, Philippe Noiret
(b.1930), French comedian and film actor, died in Paris.
(AP, 11/23/07)
2006 Nov 23, A military official
said France has bolstered its presence in the Central African Republic
with 100 more troops following rebel attacks and growing concern over
the neighboring Darfur region of Sudan.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2006 Nov 22, Rwanda’s Pres. Kagame
dismissed French accusations as "rubbish," and instead said a trial
should be opened against France, which he accuses of abetting the
100-day 1994 genocide in which minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were
targeted by Hutu extremists.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2006 Nov 23, A military official
said France has bolstered its presence in the Central African Republic
with 100 more troops following rebel attacks and growing concern over
the neighboring Darfur region of Sudan.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2006 Nov 23, Thousands of Rwandans
took to the streets of Kigali to denounce France's alleged complicity
in the 1994 genocide and a French judge's call for the prosecution of
President Paul Kagame.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2006 Nov 24, France said it will
give Tanzania 46 million euros (60 million dollars) to fund development
projects in the east African nation over the next five years.
(AFP, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 24, Rwanda cut diplomatic
ties with France and gave France's ambassador to Rwanda 24 hours to
leave the central African country. This was in response to a French
judge’s call for President Paul Kagame to stand trial over the 1994
killing of a former leader, sparking the genocide of 800,000 people.
(Reuters, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 27, French developers
have selected a design by Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne, an
award-winning American architect, for a bold new building in Paris
nearly as tall as the Eiffel Tower, and powered partly by the wind.
Completion was set for 2012.
(AP, 11/28/06)
2006 Nov 27, In Paris Eurotunnel,
operator of the Channel tunnel, was rescued from looming bankruptcy
when key creditors approved a plan to slash debt exceeding 9.0 billion
euros (11.9 billion dollars).
(AP, 11/27/06)
2006 Nov 28, Government soldiers
in the Central African Republic were on the offensive, with French
military support, to seize back towns captured by rebels who have
steadily advanced from border territory.
(AP, 11/28/06)
2006 Dec 6, France went
head-to-head with CNN and the BBC with the launch of its state-funded
24/7 news channel, part of President Jacques Chirac's efforts to make
his country's voice heard. The France 24 news channel was a joint
venture between TF1, a private firm, and the state-owned France
Televisions.
(AP, 12/6/06)(Econ, 12/2/06, p.63)
2006 Dec 6, Philippe Douste-Blazy,
the French foreign minister, said that Iran will face UN sanctions for
refusing to halt its nuclear program but that major world powers remain
divided over their extent.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 11, Two Rwandan
ex-soldiers told a panel probing alleged French complicity in the 1994
massacres that France armed and trained members of the Interahamwe
militia, a radical militia blamed for most of the killings in Rwanda's
1994 genocide.
(AFP, 12/11/06)
2006 Dec 12, In Rwanda an
ex-Interahamwe member said that he had participated in transporting
weapons from a French military plane in the former Zaire, now
Democratic Republic of Congo, to the north Rwanda province of Gisenyi
during the 1994 genocide. Witness #4 told a Rwandan commission that
French troops raped women fleeing militia gangs during the African
country's 1994 genocide.
(AFP, 12/12/06)(Reuters, 12/13/06)
2006 Dec 14, Australia and France
signed an agreement on military cooperation designed to enhance their
ability to work together.
(AFP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 16, British PM Tony Blair
arrived in Egypt for Middle East peace talks, saying the next few days
and weeks would be critical in determining whether Israel and the
Palestinians can break their cycle of violence.
(AP, 12/16/06)
2006 Dec 23, Two road accidents in
France within hours of each other left four people dead in central
Paris and some 24 injured in a 60-vehicle pileup on a foggy highway
near Bordeaux.
(AP, 12/24/06)
2006 France had about 18,000
soldiers abroad. They included 3,500 in the Ivory Coast, 1,700 in
Lebanon, 1,200 in Chad, 1,000 in the Congo, and 5,000 spread between
permanent bases in Djibouti, Senegal and Gabon.
(Econ, 12/16/06, p.49)
2006 France numbered some 3.7
million people living in poverty, defined as having a household income
of less than half of the median income. 2.4 million people were
unemployed.
(Econ, 10/28/06, Survey p.5)
2006 Nicolas Baverez (b.1961)
authored “New World, Old France,” a follow-up to his 2003 book, “France
in Freefall,” cataloguing the nihilism of the French.
(Econ, 2/4/06, p.46)
2006 Jonathan Laurence and Justin
Vaisse authored “Integrating Islam.” They focused on French efforts to
integrate its Muslim population and expressed a cautiously optimistic
tone.
(WSJ, 10/26/06, p.D6)
2006 Antoine Zacharias (b.1939),
head of the VINCI Group, a French construction giant, was forced out of
his position and left with a generous severance package. He sued the
company for €81 million for allegedly preventing him from exercising
some stock options. In 2008 a court ruled against him.
(Econ, 6/14/08,
p.77)(http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Zacharias)
2007 Jan 5, Nicolas Cocaigne, a
French prisoner in Rouen, confessed to killing his cellmate and then
eating part of the man's body. Thierry Baudry's mutilated body was
found Jan 3 by a guard at the prison. A third cellmate who claimed he
slept though the attack was charged with complicity in homicide.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 7, A helicopter crashed
into the garden terrace of a restaurant in southeastern France, killing
three people on the ground and severely injuring a fourth.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 8, Fatah gunmen released
the deputy mayor of Nablus unharmed, two days after kidnapping him.
Fatah militants torched stores of Hamas supporters in Ramallah and shot
at the house of a top Hamas official. Agence France-Presse expressed
gratitude for the release of a photographer who had been held hostage
by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 9, Mikhail Prokhorov
(41), chief executive of Russian mining giant OAO Norilsk Nickel, was
detained in France for questioning as part of a crackdown on a
suspected prostitution ring at an upscale ski resort.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Jan 12, French authorities
freed Mikhail Prokhorov, a Russian billionaire, following four days of
questioning in connection with an investigation into a suspected
prostitution ring at the swank Alpine ski resort of Courchevel.
(AP, 1/12/07)
2007 Jan 12, East Timor and France
signed non-aggression treaties with ASEAN member countries on the
sidelines of the annual ASEAN summit in the Philippine resort city of
Cebu. Both countries looked to strengthen ties with a bloc
representing a sixth of the world's people.
(AP, 1/13/07)
2007 Jan 14, France's interior
minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, formally clinched the ruling conservatives'
presidential nomination.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 22, Abbe Pierre (b.1912),
a French priest praised as a living legend for devoting his life to
helping the homeless, using prayer and provocation to tackle misery,
died in Paris. He founded the international Emmaus Community for the
poor. Abbe Pierre, born as Henry Groues, served as a spokesman
for France's conscience since the 1950s when he persuaded parliament to
pass a law, still on the books, forbidding landlords to expel tenants
during winter months.
(AP, 1/22/07)(Econ, 2/3/07, p.87)
2007 Jan 23, French doctors said
that they had performed the world’s third partial face transplant on a
man whose face was disfigured by severe tumors.
(SFC, 1/24/07, p.A2)
2007 Jan 24, Jean-Francois Deniau
(b.1928), a former French government minister, diplomat, sailor and
novelist, died. His novel "Un Hero Tres Discret" (A Very Discreet Hero)
told of an ordinary man who reinvented himself as a hero of the World
War II Resistance. The book was adapted into a movie by director
Jacques Audiard and given the English-language title "A Self Made Hero."
(AP, 1/24/07)
2007 Jan 29, Paris City Hall
announced it has selected French outdoor advertising firm JCDecaux SA
to operate a new free bicycle service in the capital.
(AP, 1/30/07)
2007 Feb 1, In France top global
warming experts huddled for a last day of talks with bureaucrats from
more than 100 countries on a closely watched global warming report that
could influence government and business policy worldwide.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, In France a ban on
smoking in public spaces came into effect.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 2, A French court
convicted dozens of people in a baby-trafficking case involving the
sale of nearly two dozen Bulgarian infants over two years.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 2, Scientists from 113
countries issued a report saying they have little doubt global warming
is caused by man, and predicting that hotter temperatures and rises in
sea level will "continue for centuries" no matter how much humans
control their pollution. The 4th report of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) was published in Paris.
(AP, 2/2/07)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.86)
2007 Feb 6, In France nearly 60
nations pledged not to use children to wage war and to disarm and
rehabilitate underage soldiers. The Paris Commitments agreement was
seen as a strong moral step against the problem, though it carried no
legal weight. They also signed a treaty that bans governments from
holding people in secret detention, but the United States and some of
its key European allies were not among them.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 7, Michel Niaucel, a
French diplomat with the European Union in Ivory Coast, was shot to
death in his home overnight. Niaucel was in charge of West Africa
security operations for the EU.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 8, In France teachers,
tax collectors, railway workers and other public servants went on
strike to protest job losses and demand higher pay.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 9, A French appeals court
ruled that Pierre Pinoncelli (78), who attacked Marcel Duchamp's famed
porcelain urinal (fountain) with a hammer last year, does not have to
pay $260,000 in damages. Pinoncelli urinated on "Fountain" during a
1993 exhibition in Nimes in southern France, and cut off his own finger
as an expression of solidarity with Colombian-French politician Ingrid
Betancourt, held hostage by leftist guerrillas in Colombia since 2002.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 9, In France
Alcatel-Lucent SA said it plans to cut another 3,500 jobs after it
swung to a loss in the fourth quarter, the first for which the telecom
equipment maker reported combined earnings.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 11, In France socialist
presidential candidate Segolene Royal unveiled a long-awaited platform
that promised to boost the minimum wage and pension payments.
(AP, 2/11/07)
2007 Feb 15, A summit of African
leaders opened in Cannes on the French Riviera. The crisis in Darfur
and violence in Guinea overshadowed the summit, as well as perennial
issues of poverty, development and AIDS. France won agreement from
three involved African nations (Sudan, Chad and Central African
Republic) that they would not support armed rebel movements on each
other's territories.
(AP, 2/15/07)(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 16, French President
Jacques Chirac said US cotton subsidies were scandalous and immoral
because they hurt African farmers.
(Reuters, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 17, President Jacques
Chirac awarded the Legion d'Honneur order to actor and director Clint
Eastwood (76), calling his latest films lessons in humanity. Chirac
said Eastwood's latest films "Flags of our Fathers" and "Letters from
Iwo Jima" showed the impasse that can follow from the blind use of
force.
(AP, 2/17/07)
2007 Feb 17, Maurice Papon (96), a
former French Cabinet minister, died. He was convicted of complicity in
crimes against humanity for his role in deporting Jews during World War
II and became a symbol of France’s collaboration with the Nazis.
(AP, 2/17/07)(Econ, 2/24/07, p.99)
2007 Feb 26, Three Frenchmen who
lived in Saudi Arabia were killed by gunmen on the side of a desert
road leading to the holy city of Medina in an area restricted to
Muslims only. Soon after a 4th died from his wounds. An investigation
later revealed that Waleed bin Mutlaq al-Radadi, among the kingdom's
most wanted terrorists, was the mastermind and one of the triggermen in
the shooting. Al-Radadi was killed on April 6 in a gunbattle with Saudi
forces.
(AP, 2/26/07)(AP, 4/18/07)
2007 Feb 27, At least 2 Picasso
paintings ("Maya and the Doll" and "Portrait of Jacqueline"), worth a
total of nearly $66 million, were stolen overnight from the artist's
granddaughter's house in Paris. The paintings were recovered August 7
and police took 3 people into custody.
(AP, 2/28/07)(AP, 8/8/07)
2007 Feb 27, In Brazil 3 French
nationals who ran a nonprofit group that helps poor children were
stabbed to death at their headquarters near Rio's Copacabana beach and
authorities arrested three suspects. The slayings that left one of the
victims decapitated were part of a botched scheme to protect a
Brazilian accountant, Tarsio Wilson Ramires (25), accused of stealing
money from the group.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 28, European airliner
maker Airbus told unions that it would dispose of six factories and
switch some work from France to Germany under a plan costing some
10,000 jobs.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 28, French author
Dominique Lapierre opened the first of 15 schools planned in India with
money raised by auctioning an iconic dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in
"Breakfast at Tiffany's."
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Mar 1, In France, Germany and
Spain workers at Airbus revolted against massive cutbacks, planning a
strike next week in a warning to the company that its recovery strategy
is in for a long, tough haul.
(AFP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 2, Henri Troyat (95),
French writer, died. He fled Russia's revolution as a child and went on
to become one of France's most prolific, popular and respected authors.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 4, In the Central African
Republic French fighter jets destroyed several rebel vehicles in
retaliation for an attack on French troops.
(AP, 3/4/07)
2007 Mar 6, France and the United
Arab Emirates signed an agreement to open a branch of the Louvre museum
in Abu Dhabi, despite criticism that the French government is peddling
the country's artistic treasures.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 6, Jean Baudrillard
(b.1929), French philosopher and social theorist, died. He was best
known for his writings on gender relations and consumerism.
(Econ, 3/17/07,
p.93)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baudrillard)
2007 Mar 7, In France a new law
took effect that makes it a crime for anyone, who is not a professional
journalist, to film real-world violence and distribute the images on
the Internet. Critics call it a clumsy effort by authorities to battle
"happy slapping," the youth fad of filming violent acts, which most
often they have provoked, and spreading the images on the Web or
between mobile phones.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 11, Jacques Chirac,
admired and scorned during 12 years as France's president, announced he
will not seek a third term in elections this spring, a widely expected
move given his low popularity, his age and a conservative rival who has
siphoned off his political base. His popularity had shrunk to 29% as
unemployment stood at 8.6%.
(AP, 3/11/07)(Econ, 3/17/07, p.27)
2007 Mar 13, France's highest
court rejected as unlawful the first marriage by a gay couple in
France, annulling the union of the two men.
(AP, 3/13/07)
2007 Mar 14, Lucie Aubrac
(b.1912), a hero of the French Resistance, died. She helped free her
husband from the Gestapo. In 2000, Aubrac published "The Resistance
Explained to my Grandchildren" about her experiences. She is also the
author of the 1984 book "They'll Leave Exhilarated." French director
Claude Berry made the hit 1997 movie "Lucie Aubrac," starring Carole
Bouquet in the title role. Two other films, Jean-Pierre Melville's 1969
"The Army of Shadows" and the 1991 "Boulevard of the Swallows" by Jose
Yanne, were also based on Aubrac's story.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 15, A French court
convicted a doctor in the poisoning death of a terminally ill cancer
patient, in a trial that has raised the issue of euthanasia in France's
presidential race.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 17, In France tens of
thousands of people filled the streets of five cities to protest plans
to build the next generation of nuclear reactors.
(AP, 3/17/07)
2007 Mar 21, French President
Jacques Chirac endorsed the presidential bid of Interior Minister
Nicolas Sarkozy despite their long rivalry.
(AP, 3/21/07)
2007 Mar 22, France became the
first country to open its files on UFOs when the national space agency
unveiled a website documenting more than 1,600 sightings spanning five
decades.
(AFP, 3/22/07)
2007 Mar 22, Brian Joubert became
the first Frenchman in 42 years to win the world title by taking the
men's event at the World Figure Skating Championships in Tokyo.
(AP, 3/22/08)
2007 Mar 26, Nicolas Sarkozy
resigned as French interior minister to focus on his presidential bid,
recalling his successes but also challenges, including violence by poor
young minorities.
(AP, 3/26/07)
2007 Mar 27, French riot police
firing tear gas and brandishing batons clashed with bands of youths who
shattered windows and looted shops at a major Paris train station. Nine
people were arrested.
(AP, 3/28/07)
2007 Mar 28, In France an official
at a Paris maternity hospital said Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre is the
French nun whose testimony of a mystery cure from Parkinson's disease
will likely be accepted as the miracle the Vatican needs to beatify
Pope John Paul II.
(AP, 3/28/07)
2007 Mar 30, A French architect
claimed to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great Pyramid
of Khufu was built. Jean-Pierre Houdin said advanced 3D technology had
shown the main ramp which was used to haul the massive stones to the
apex was contained 10-15 meters beneath the outer skin, tracing a
pyramid within a pyramid..
(Reuters, 3/30/07)
2007 Apr 3, A French train with a
25,000-horsepower engine and special wheels broke the world speed
record for conventional rail trains, reaching 357.2 mph as it zipped
through the countryside to the applause of spectators. It surpassed the
record of 320.2 mph set in 1990 by another French train. It fell short
of beating the ultimate record set by Japan's magnetically levitated
train, which hit 361 mph in 2003.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 19, Rwanda filed a case
against France at the UN's highest court in The Hague over a French
request that President Paul Kagame be tried by the Rwanda war crimes
tribunal.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 22, French voters turned
out in force to choose a new president in one of the country's most
suspense-filled elections in recent times. In the first round
conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist rival Segolene Royal
received enough votes to advance to a runoff, which Sarkozy won.
(AP, 4/22/07)(AP, 4/22/08)
2007 Apr 23, In France Sarkozy and
Royal advanced to the second round of France's presidential election,
With nearly all votes counted, Sarkozy had 31.1%, followed by Royal
with 25.8% and Bayrou with 18.5%. Turnout was 84.6 percent, the highest
in more than 40 years and just shy of the record set in 1965.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 24, Rwandan media said
that a former Belgian army officer in the UN mission to Rwanda (Minuar)
has accused French soldiers of training extremist Hutus responsible for
the 1994 genocide.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 May 3, In France Claude
Mandil, head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), told a news
conference that there is no reason why Iran should not have nuclear
energy.
(Reuters, 5/3/07)
2007 May 6, French voters turned
out in force in a presidential election offering divergent choices for
the future, with conservative front-runner Nicolas Sarkozy urging the
French to work more and Socialist Segolene Royal pledging to safeguard
welfare protections. Nicolas Sarkozy (52), a US-friendly conservative
and an immigrant's son, defeated Socialist Segolene Royal by 53% to 47%
with about 85% voter turnout.
(AP, 5/6/07)(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 8, The leader of France's
defeated Socialists appealed for calm after a second night of
post-election violence left cars burned and store windows smashed.
(AP, 5/8/07)
2007 May 9, France’s interior
minister said violence hit for a third night following the election of
conservative Nicolas Sarkozy, with about 200 vehicles torched by
vandals and more than 80 people taken in for questioning nationwide.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 9, In France Nayef
al-Shaalan, a Saudi Prince, was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in
jail on charges of involvement in a cocaine smuggling gang.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 12, Eric Damfreville, a
French aid worker, returned to France after five weeks in Taliban
captivity in Afghanistan and made a plea for his captors to free three
Afghans seized with him.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 12, Waves reaching 36
feet high thrashed France's Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, leaving
two fishermen missing and flooding homes and hotels.
(AP, 5/13/07)
2007 May 16, Nicolas Sarkozy took
office as France's president.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 17, French Pres. Nicolas
Sarkozy named Francois Fillon (53), a Gaullist former social affairs
minister, to be his prime minister.
(SFC, 5/18/07, p.A3)(Econ, 5/19/07, p.56)
2007 May 18, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy named his first Cabinet, radically revamping the
government, which included seven women among its 15 members. Bernard
Kouchner, former UN administrator for Kosovo and co-founder of the
Nobel Prize-winning aid group Doctors Without Borders, was named
foreign minister.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 27, Christian Mungiu, a
Romanian director, won the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or for his “3
Weeks and 2 Days,” which looked at abortion during the communist era.
Michael Moore’s “Sicko,” a film on the inequities of America’s health
system, also featured at Cannes.
(WSJ, 5/29/07, p.A1)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.32)
2007 Jun 1, A French naval frigate
conducting a surveillance mission off Malta discovered the bodies of 18
people floating in the Mediterranean. Crew members on "La Motte
Picquet" noticed no boat nearby as the bodies, possibly of illegal
immigrants hoping to reach Europe, were pulled out of the water.
(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 Jun 2, In San Francisco, Ca.,
Hugues de la Plaza (36), a French national, was found dead in his
apartment in Hayes Valley. Police labeled his stabbing death as a
possible homicide or suicide. In 2009 a French probe called his death a
homicide. The French probe concluded that de la Plaza was stabbed in a
surprise attack outside his apartment.
(SFC, 1/27/09, p.B1)(SFC, 2/27/09, p.B1)
2007 Jun 3, Pope Benedict XVI
named four new saints from France, Malta, the Netherlands and Poland at
a ceremony in St. Peter's Square. Among those honored was Sister Marie
Eugenie de Jesus Milleret, a French nun who in 1839 founded the
Religious of the Assumption to educate young girls; the Rev. George
Preca of Malta, who founded the Society of Christian Doctrine in 1932
as a group of lay people who teach the faith to others; the Rev. Szymon
z Lipnicy of Poland, a Franciscan monk who comforted Poles afflicted by
the plague that broke out in Krakow from 1482-83 and died of it
himself; and the Rev. Charles of St. Andrew (Dublin), who was born
Karel Van Sint Andries Houben in the Netherlands in 1821.
(AP, 6/3/07)
2007 Jun 10, France held
parliamentary elections. President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to revive
France's economy and its identity stood their first test, with voters
widely expected to give allies of their new conservative leader a
mandate for change. In round one of Sarkozy’s UMP party won 39.6
percent of the vote, while the opposition Socialists had 24.7 percent.
The results gave the conservatives a strong advantage heading into the
decisive runoff next Sunday.
(AP, 6/10/07)(AP, 6/11/07)
2007 Jun 10, The first high-speed
rail link between France and Germany began scheduled services, slashing
travel times and marking a major step towards a truly pan-European
rapid transit network.
(AP, 6/10/07)
2007 Jun 12, Baron Guy de
Rothschild (b.1909), French banker, died. He managed his family's
French banking empire and saw it taken over first during the Nazi
occupation and then by a Socialist government 40 years later.
(AP, 6/14/07)
2007 Jun 14, A US panel said an
obesity treatment made by French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis
was unsafe and should not be marketed in the United States.
(AP, 6/14/07)
2007 Jun 16, Voting began in some
overseas French territories in the final round of parliamentary
elections expected to give conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy a big
majority for his reform plans.
(AP, 6/16/07)
2007 Jun 17, President Nicolas
Sarkozy looked set to win a powerful majority as the French voted in
runoff elections for parliament. Sarkozy won a comfortable majority but
not the crushing victory predicted in polls.
(AP, 6/17/07)(AP, 6/18/07)
2007 Jun 18, In France Airbus
racked up a series of big orders at the opening of the Paris Air Show.
Airbus announced that it had booked firm orders or letters of intent to
order for 339 aircraft, a record figure, for a value of 45.7 billion
dollars (34.1 billion euros) at catalogue prices.
(AP, 6/18/07)(AFP, 6/19/07)
2007 Jul 2, Brahim Deby (27), the
son of Chad's president, was found dead with a head wound in the
basement of his apartment building in a Paris suburb. Authorities
treated the case as a murder investigation.
(AP, 7/2/07)
2007 Jul 5, France’s Agriculture
Ministry said 3 swans found dead in a pond in eastern France have
tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
(AP, 7/5/07)
2007 Jul 5, Regine Crespin (80),
the French opera great who took her personal magnetism and soprano
voice to the world's leading stages, died.
(AP, 7/5/07)
2007 Jul 6, In France some 50
masked attackers smashed cars and clashed with police in northeast
Paris. Three officers were injured.
(AP, 7/6/07)
2007 Jul 8, France’s President
Nicolas Sarkozy said he will not offer mass pardons to prisoners on
Bastille Day, keeping up his law-and-order reputation and breaking with
tradition.
(AP, 7/8/07)
2007 Jul 10, EU finance ministers
agreed to have Dominique Strauss-Kahn at top man at the IMF to replace
Rodrigo de Rato, who will resign in October.
(Econ, 7/14/07, p.12)(www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19691259/)
2007 Jul 12, French legislators
approved a measure championed by President Nicolas Sarkozy that would
encourage people to work beyond the 35-hour workweek by cutting taxes
on overtime pay.
(AP, 7/12/07)
2007 Jul 12, France told Serbia
its EU bid depends on letting Kosovo break away.
(WSJ, 1/13/07, p.A1)
2007 Jul 13, French legislators
approved a measure lowering the cap on tax burdens to 50% of income,
despite resistance from leftists and even within the ruling
conservative coalition.
(AP, 7/13/07)
2007 Jul 13, A French gendarme
shot a superior officer dead in a Paris suburb before killing his own
twin children and finally turning the gun on himself.
(AP, 7/13/07)
2007 Jul 14, In southern France
Pascal Payet (43), who was serving a 30-year sentence for a holdup on
an armored truck that left a guard dead, escaped by helicopter from the
Grasse prison. Payet had escaped from the Luynes prison in October
2001. In 2003, he helped organize the helicopter escape of three fellow
inmates from the same prison. In September Payet was arrested along
with 2 accomplices in Mataro, Spain.
(AP, 7/17/07)(AP, 9/22/07)
2007 Jul 15, JCDecaux launched a
bike rental system in Paris.
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.76)
2007 Jul 20, Two suspects in the
1994 Rwandan genocide, a priest and a prefect, were arrested in France
on a warrant from an international court investigating the massacres.
Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, a Roman Catholic priest in Normandy, and Laurent
Bucyibaruta, a former prefect, were jailed before possible extradition
to Tanzania where the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is
based.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 22, A bus carrying Polish
pilgrims from a holy site in the French Alps plunged off a steep
mountain road, crashed into a river bed and burst into flames, killing
26 people.
(AFP, 7/22/07)
2007 Jul 25, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy headed for talks with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, a
day after the release of six foreign medics, in a signal of normalized
ties between Europe and Tripoli. France and Libya signed a memorandum
of understanding to build a Libyan nuclear reactor for water
desalination and clinched a raft of other deals.
(AP, 7/25/07)(AFP, 7/25/07)
2007 Jul 26, Juan Cruz Maiza, the
alleged head of ETA’s logistics, was arrested in France along with two
helpers.
(Econ, 8/4/07, p.44)
2007 Jul 27, French judges filed
preliminary charges against former PM Dominique de Villepin for his
suspected role in a smear campaign that targeted Nicolas Sarkozy before
he became president.
(AP, 7/27/07)
2007 Jul 29, Alberto Contador of
Spain won the doping-scarred Tour de France.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2007 Jul 29, French actor Michel
Serrault died in Honfleur, France, at age 79.
(AP, 7/29/08)
2007 Aug 1, Denmark, France and
Indonesia offered to contribute to a joint UN-African Union mission for
Darfur, a 26,000-strong force expected to be made up mostly of
peacekeepers from Africa with backup from Asian troops. Sudan accepted
a UN resolution approving a joint African Union-UN peacekeeping force
in Darfur.
(AP, 8/1/07)(AFP, 8/1/07)
2007 Aug 1, A French court ruled
that indictments for Wenceslas Munyeshyaka and another man, Laurent
Bucyibaruta, violated the presumption of innocence. Rwanda had sought
the extradition of the 2 men for their roles in the country's 1994
genocide.
(Reuters, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 5, A group of armed,
masked men burst into a museum in the southern French city of Nice and
made off with a painting by French master Claude Monet and two others
by Flemish artist Pieter Brueghel. The paintings were recovered on June
4, 2008, in a sting operation that captured 3 men near Marseilles.
(AP, 8/5/07)(AP, 6/5/08)(WSJ, 8/22/08, p.W1)
2007 Aug 5, French Cardinal
Jean-Marie Lustiger (80) died. He was a Jew who converted to
Catholicism and rose through church hierarchy to become one of the most
influential Roman Catholic figures in France.
(AP, 8/5/07)(Econ, 8/18/07, p.76)
2007 Aug 6, Baron Elie Robert de
Rothschild (90), who helped France's renowned Rothschild winemaking and
banking dynasty recover from the ravages of World War II, died while
vacationing at his Austrian hunting lodge.
(AP, 8/6/07)
2007 Aug 11, President George W.
Bush welcomed France's Pres. Sarkozy to the Bush family's oceanfront
home in Maine for a private meeting, boat ride and picnic fare.
(www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/08/11/bush-sarkozy.html)
2007 Aug 21, In Iraq French
Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner called on Europe to play a bigger
role in Iraq because "the Americans will not be able to get this
country out of difficulty alone." The postwar Iraqi tribunal trying
former Saddam Hussein aides opened its third proceeding, putting former
Defense Minister Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," and 14
other men on trial.
(AP, 8/21/07)(AP, 8/21/08)
2007 Aug 25, Raymond Barre
(b.1924), a tough-speaking former French prime minister (1976-1981) and
economist, died.
(AP, 8/25/07)
2007 Aug 27, Pres. Sarkozy called
for a clear timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq as
he outlined an assertive role for France in other world hotspots.
Sarkozy urged EU nations to accept a greater share of defense spending
to cope with escalating global threats.
(AFP, 8/27/07)(Reuters, 8/27/07)
2007 Aug 27, The French government
said a tax official cheated the government out of 600,000 euros
($820,000) by creating a phantom identity as a university professor and
claiming a salary for some 15 years.
(Reuters, 8/28/07)
2007 Sep 20, Floyd Landis lost his
expensive and explosive case when two of three arbitrators upheld the
results of a test that showed the 2006 Tour de France champion had used
synthetic testosterone to fuel his spectacular comeback victory. Landis
forfeited his Tour title and was subject to a two-year ban, retroactive
to Jan. 30, 2007.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2007 Aug 29, Pierre Messmer
(b.1916), a member of the French Resistance who was the country's prime
minister from 1972 to 1974, died.
(AP, 8/29/07)
2007 Aug 30, Pres. Sarkozy became
the first ruling head of state to address the Medef, France’s leading
business organization. He laid out the second stage of his economic
reforms, including a wholesale review of tax and social security
contributions.
(Econ, 9/1/07, p.59)
2007 Sep 1, Police arrested four
suspected members of the armed Basque separatist group ETA in
south-west France, believed to be linked to the deadly Madrid airport
bomb in December.
(AP, 9/1/07)
2007 Sep 1, In Morocco
Renault-Nissan head Carlos Ghosn signed a deal to build an assembly
plant in Tangiers, with a planned investment of one billion euros (1.36
billion dollars) and final capacity of 400,000 vehicles.
(AFP, 9/1/07)
2007 Sep 3, President Nicolas
Sarkozy said France and Jordan want to work "hand-in-hand" to help
resolve crises in the Middle East, following talks with King Abdullah
II.
(AP, 9/3/07)
2007 Sep 3, The French government
tied up the long-delayed merger of Suez and state-owned Gaz de France,
giving the country another world energy champion in a sector that Paris
was eager to protect from foreigners.
(AP, 9/3/07)
2007 Sep 4, A Eurostar train
shattered the record for the quickest rail journey between Paris and
London, using a new high-speed track that shaved some 30 minutes off
the previous fastest time. The 306 mile (492 kilometer) journey from
the Gare du Nord in Paris to Saint Pancras took just two hours, three
minutes and 39 seconds from station to station.
(AP, 9/4/07)
2007 Sep 14, Jacques Martin
(b.1933), the French television personality once married to now-first
lady Cecilia Sarkozy, died. Martin shot to fame as the host of a series
of hit comedy shows on French television, including the satirical "Le
Petit Rapporteur," a spoof newscast that ran from 1975-1976.
(AP, 9/14/07)
2007 Sep 16, Bernard Kouchner,
France's foreign minister, warned that the world should prepare for war
if Iran obtains nuclear weapons and said European leaders were
considering their own economic sanctions against the Islamic country.
(AP, 9/16/07)
2007 Sep 17, Ukrainian officials
signed a $505 million contract with a French-led consortium for
construction of a new shelter for the Chernobyl reactor, the site of
the word's worst nuclear accident.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2007 Sep 20, In a nationally
televised interview, Pres. Sarkozy went further, saying he wants France
to adopt immigration quotas by regions of the world and by occupation.
With three months left in the year, police have caught at least 11,800
immigrants, less than half the 25,000 target, ordered by Pres. Sarkozy,
who has ordered officials to pick up the pace.
(AP, 9/22/07)
2007 Sep 21, US Sec. of State
Condoleeza Rice said the US and France have agreed on increasing
diplomatic and economic pressure to force Iran to abandon its nuclear
program.
(SFC, 9/21/07, p.A3)
2007 Sep 22, Marcel Marceau
(b.1923), the world's best-known mime artist, died in Paris, France.
For decades he moved audiences across the globe without uttering a
single word.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7009040.stm)
2007 Sep 24, French PM Francois
Fillon warned that the country's public finances were in a "critical"
state and need drastic action to reduce worrying deficits.
(AP, 9/24/07)
2007 Sep 26, The French government
unveiled its 2008 budget with a deficit forecast at €41.7 billion
($58.8 billion).
(Econ, 9/29/07, p.53)
2007 Sep 28, The IMF chose
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, France’s former Socialist finance minister, as
its new head, continuing the tradition of a European leading the
organization.
(WSJ, 9/29/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 4, In northeast France
dozens of hooded youths attacked two police vehicles with metal bars,
set fire to more than a dozen parked cars and torched a community
center in Saint-Dizier.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 7, In Paris, France,
intruders, apparently drunk, broke into the Orsay Museum through a back
door and punched a hole in "Le Pont d'Argenteuil," a renowned work by
Impressionist painter Claude Monet.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Oct 9, Two European
scientists won the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics for a discovery that
lets computers, iPods and other digital devices store reams of data on
ever-shrinking hard disks. France's Albert Fert and German Peter
Gruenberg independently described giant magnetoresistance in 1988, then
saw the electronics industry apply it in disks with incredible amounts
of storage.
(AP, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 13, Bob Denard (78), a
French former mercenary who staged coups and led uprisings across
Africa and the Middle East, died in Paris.
(AFP, 10/14/07)(Econ, 10/20/07, p.119)
2007 Oct 18,
Strikers defying Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy's push to reform France
crippled the country's public transport system, forcing commuters to
drive, pedal or walk to work, or stay home. Some workers vowed to
continue the walkout, France’s biggest strike in 12 years. Sarkozy's
office said Pres. Sarkozy and his wife, Cecilia, are divorcing after
nearly 11 years of marriage by mutual consent.
(AP, 10/18/07)(WSJ, 10/19/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 19,
Train service started back up throughout much of France but many
commuters in Paris biked, roller-bladed and even used children's
scooters as city transit workers kept up a second day of strikes
against proposed economic reforms.
(AP, 10/19/07)
2007 Oct 20,
France handed Algeria details of where its forces laid some 3
million landmines on the country's eastern and western borders from
1956-1959.
(AFP, 10/20/07)
2007 Oct 22,
French President Nicolas Sarkozy met with Morocco's King Mohammed
XVI and signed a string of deals aimed at fostering closer cooperation
between the two countries and economic development projects.
(AP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 23,
French lawmakers adopted a hotly contested bill that would
institute language exams and potential DNA testing for prospective
immigrants, making it more difficult for families to join loved ones in
France.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 24,
France's government agreed to reward drivers of cars that use
little gasoline, drastically slow road construction and renovate all
the country's public buildings to slash energy consumption.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 24, A French defense
ministry official said France will for the first time send dozens of
military trainers to the volatile south of Afghanistan.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 25, In Chad 9 French
citizens were arrested after a group tried to fly 103 African children
to France, saying it wanted to save them from the crisis in neighboring
Darfur. On Oct 29 six French nationals were charged with kidnapping and
a judge in the eastern city of Abeche also agreed to allow prosecution
charges of complicity against three French journalists.
(AP, 10/26/07)(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Oct 27, Queues of frustrated,
angry passengers built up at main French airports as Air France
cancelled scores of flights on the third day of a strike by cabin staff.
(AP, 10/27/07)
2007 Oct 28, Authorities in Chad
charged six French charity workers with kidnapping after they tried to
put 103 children on a plane to France, claiming they were orphans from
Sudan's conflict-wracked Darfur region. The charity workers were later
convicted, jailed for several months, then pardoned.
(AP, 10/29/08)
2007 Oct 31,
Authorities said French police had arrested 20 suspects as part
of a Europe-wide crackdown on child pornography over the Internet.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Oct 31, Alcatel-Lucent, the
struggling French-US telecommunications equipment maker, announced it
would cut an additional 4,000 jobs by 2009 as it unveiled a sharp third
quarter net loss.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Nov 1, Dominique
Strauss-Kahn, former French finance minister, took over as head of the
IMF. By convention the IMF chief is European.
(Econ, 11/3/07, p.88)
2007 Nov 4, In Chad 7 Europeans,
among 17 detained for over a week in an alleged attempt to kidnap 103
African children, were released. French President Nicolas Sarkozy
arrived in Chad on a visit to discuss the fate of Europeans facing
charges for trying to fly 103 African children to Europe.
(AP, 11/4/07)(Reuters, 11/4/07)
2007 Nov 7, Pres. Bush met with
France’s Pres. Sarkozy, who addressed the US Congress and backed Bush’s
strategy to confront Iran.
(SFC, 11/8/07, p.A8)
2007 Nov 10, A top police officer
said the Champs Elysees, held up by France as the most beautiful avenue
in the world, has become blighted by prostitution, racketeering and
violence.
(AP, 11/10/07)
2007 Nov 13, French rail
workers went on a nine-day strike over President Nicolas Sarkozy's bid
to strip away labor protections.
(AP, 11/13/08)
2007 Nov 14, In France striking
transportation workers cut train service and forced Parisians to walk,
bike or skate to work in a pivotal standoff with President Nicolas
Sarkozy over his bid to pare down labor protections.
(AP, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 14, A French court
approved the handover to a UN court of Dominique Ntawukuriryayo (65), a
Rwandan 1994 genocide suspect accused of coordinating the massacre of
up to 25,000 people in one incident.
(Reuters, 11/14/07)
2007 Nov 15, Transport workers
shut down most rail traffic in France for a 2nd day, frustrating
passengers forced to postpone trips and Parisians who had to walk, bike
or skate to work.
(AP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 16, French transport
workers voted to keep a national strike going through the weekend over
President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to strip away generous pension
benefits.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 17, France's biggest rail
union said a new offer of talks from employers did not go far enough,
as the country headed towards a fifth day of crippling transport
strikes.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 19, In France a "large
majority" of rail workers voted to keep up the train strike.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 20, Travel woes piled up
in France with air traffic delays adding to a week of rail strikes as
many of the nation's 5 million civil servants held a day-long walkout
in the biggest test of President Nicolas Sarkozy's appetite for reform.
(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Nov 21, A French judge filed
preliminary charges against former President Jacques Chirac in a probe
of suspicions that people were given fake jobs while he was mayor of
Paris (1977-1995). Some 10,000 people, mainly tobacco sellers, marched
through Paris to protest a smoking ban in cafes as of Jan 1.
Coordinated acts of sabotage struck France's high-speed trains, causing
further delays to services already widely disrupted by strikes, just as
talks were opening to coax unions into ending their walkout.
(AP, 11/21/07)(AP, 11/22/07)(Econ, 11/24/07, p.56)
2007 Nov 22, A nine-day transport
strike that has crippled the French rail network appeared to be drawing
to a close as many local union committees voted to suspend their
stoppage and give negotiations a chance.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 24, Full service was
restored on the Paris Metro and most French trains were running after
transport workers ended a crippling strike so that talks on pension
reform could run their course.
(AP, 11/24/07)
2007 Nov 25, In France youths
assaulted a police station, torched cars and vandalized stores in a
rampage that injured 21 police officers in Villiers-le-Bel, a rundown
Paris suburb. The violence was prompted when two teens were killed in a
motorbike crash with a police patrol car.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 26, France netted deals
in China for nuclear reactors and passenger jets worth a combined
$29.62 billion on the second day of a state visit by President Nicolas
Sarkozy.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 27, Police said rampaging
youths rioted for a second night in Paris' suburbs, firing at officers
and ramming burning cars into buildings. At least 77 officers were
injured.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2007 Nov 27, French police
detained a 68-year-old retired "drag queen" performer on suspicion of
murdering 18 mainly gay men between 1980 and 2000.
(AFP, 11/28/07)
2007 Nov 28, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy pledged to punish rioters who shot at police but sought
to ease tensions with an independent probe into the deaths of two
youths that triggered the unrest.
(AP, 11/28/07)
2007 Dec 1, ETA gunmen shot and
killed a Spanish policeman and seriously injured another in France, the
first killing by the Basque separatist group in almost a year.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 4, France and Algeria
agreed to cooperate on civilian nuclear technologies. French oil group
Total said it had signed a deal to invest about 1.5 billion dollars in
a new 3.0-billion-dollar (2.0 billion euros) petrochemical plant in
Algeria.
(AFP, 12/4/07)(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 5, French police arrested
two armed people in connection with a weekend shooting that left two
Spanish officers dead in what authorities described as the first
Basque-related killings in France in more than three decades.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 6, A French
anti-terrorist judge filed preliminary charges against Guillaume
Dasquie, an investigative journalist and author, accused of publishing
defense secrets.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 6, A parcel bomb exploded
at a lawyer's office in central Paris, killing a secretary and
seriously injuring an attorney, but a motive was not immediately clear.
(AP, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 7, Six French nationals
detained in Chad on suspicion of trying to illegally fly 103 children
to Europe started a hunger strike, complaining their case was being
neglected.
(Reuters, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 10, Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi arrived on his first visit to France in 34 years, sparking
protests from rights groups and criticism from the government's own
human rights minister. Gadhafi got straight to business, cutting $14.7
billion in deals for arms and nuclear reactors on his first official
visit to the West since renouncing terrorism and atomic weapons.
(AFP, 12/10/07)(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 12, Ashraf Juma Hajuj,
the Palestinian-born doctor held with five Bulgarian nurses in a Libyan
prison for over eight years, filed suit in Paris against Libyan leader
Moamer Kadhafi for torture. The six medics, who always maintained their
innocence, said they were subjected to torture, including beatings,
electric shocks, food and sleep deprivation, and even sexual abuse, in
order to confess to their alleged crime.
(AFP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 22, Making the first-ever
trip to Afghanistan by a French president, Nicolas Sarkozy met with
Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss the political and military
situation in the war-torn country.
(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 22, French author Julien
Gracq (97), one of the last links with the pre-World War II Surrealist
movement, died.
(AP, 12/23/07)
2007 Dec 24, Gunmen shot dead four
French tourists in Mauritania in West Africa. Sidi Ould Sidna, was
charged with planning and executing the killings of the French
tourists. He was extradited by Guinea-Bissau in January but later
escaped from authorities. 2 other suspected terrorists were arrested on
April 30.
(AP, 12/24/07)(AP, 4/30/08)
2007 Dec 26, A Chadian court
convicted six French aid workers of trying to kidnap 103 African
children and sentenced them to eight years of forced labor. The French
Foreign Ministry in Paris said it would ask Chadian authorities to
transfer the six convicted to France. The countries have a bilateral
judicial agreement that could allow for such a transfer.
(AP, 12/26/07)
2007 Dec 28, In Chad 6 French aid
workers sentenced to eight years' forced labor for trying to kidnap 103
children left for France, boarding a plane in handcuffs as security
officers looked on.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 30, President Nicolas
Sarkozy said France will have no more contact with Syria until Damascus
shows its willingness to let Lebanon end its current crisis and appoint
a new president.
(AP, 12/30/07)
2007 The English translation of
presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy’s “Testimony: France in the
Twenty-First Century,” became available. It had been published in
France in 2006 as Temoignange.”
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.86)
2007 Yasmina Reza authored “L’Aube
le soir ou la nui” (Dawn evening or night), an account of her year
shadowing Nicolas Sarkozy.
(Econ, 9/1/07, p.73)
2007 Olivier Roy, a French
scholar, authored “Secularism Confronts Islam.”
(Econ, 8/11/07, p.75)
2007 Bernard Arnault, chairman of
luxury goods maker LVMH, and Colony Capital, an American private equity
firm, jointly bout a 9.8% stake in France’s Carrefour, the world’s 2nd
largest retailer.
(Econ, 10/18/08, p.74)
2008 Jan 1, Vandals torched 372
cars as France celebrated the New Year, down on the figure last year
after a night the police described as "relatively calm."
(AP, 1/1/08)(Reuters, 1/1/08)
2008 Jan 1, Smokers took to
lighting up on the sidewalks as a ban took effect across France ,
Germany and Lithuania, the latest European countries to say "no
smoking." Across France smokers took advantage of a one-day grace
period and savored their last cigarettes over morning coffee in cafes
as a ban against lighting up in bars and restaurants took effect.
(AP, 1/1/08)(AFP, 1/1/08)
2008 Jan 2, France's most drastic
measure to curb smoking went into effect with a full ban on lighting up
in cafes, restaurants and discotheques.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 9, French legal
plaintiffs said police have arrested Marcel Bivugabagabo (53), a former
officer in the Rwandan army accused of taking part in the 1994
genocide. Bivugabagabo was commander of the Ruhengeri sector in western
Rwanda from April to July 1994.
(AFP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 11, Belgium, France and
Poland pledged to provide the resources needed to launch a European
Union peacekeeping force for Chad and the Central African Republic.
(AP, 1/11/08)
2008 Jan 11, In France militant
French farmer Jose Bove and about 15 supporters called off their hunger
strike in its eighth day after the government ordered the suspension of
the use of genetically modified corn.
(AP, 1/11/08)
2008 Jan 13, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed plans to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement
with the United Arab Emirates amid reports French firms could construct
up to two nuclear reactors there.
(AP, 1/13/08)
2008 Jan 15, The French government
announced during a visit by Pres. Sarkozy that it will set up a
permanent military base of up to 500 troops in the United Arab Emirates.
(AP, 1/15/08)
2008 Jan 22, The French government
unveiled proposals to slash youth unemployment in the high-immigrant
suburbs that exploded into rioting in 2005, pledging to create tens of
thousands of new jobs.
(AP, 1/22/08)
2008 Jan 23, In France an economic
commission headed by Jacques Attali issued a report: 300 Decisions for
Changing France,” which had been requested by Pres. Sarkozy.
(Econ, 1/26/08, p.51)
2008 Jan 24, French bank Societe
Generale announced a $3 billion write-down on its exposure to mortgage
related investments. Societe Generale also said it has uncovered a
$7.14 billion fraud, one of history's biggest, by futures trader Jerome
Kerviel (31). His scheme of fictitious transactions was discovered as
stock markets began to stumble in recent days.
(Econ, 1/26/08, p.73)(AP, 1/24/08)
2008 Jan 25, In France tens of
thousands of civil servants demonstrated to protest job cuts and press
for higher salaries in what the government dismissed as a "labor union
ritual."
(AP, 1/25/08)
2008 Jan 25, India and France said
they would push their military ties beyond weapons sales and open up
nuclear power cooperation as soon as New Delhi is able to enter the
global atomic energy market.
(AP, 1/25/08)
2008 Jan 27, France's Societe
Generale said Jerome Kerviel, the young trader blamed for losses that
cost the bank more than $7 billion, hacked computers and used "several
techniques of fraud." Judicial officials said the man would remain in
custody a further 24 hours. The bank said Kerviel had built up a
position worth some $73.5 billion, which was eventually closed or
hedged by Jan 23 with a loss of $7.21 billion.
(AP, 1/27/08)
2008 Jan 28, A French court
sentenced six French charity workers to 8 years in prison, after they
were convicted in Chad of trying to kidnap 103 children they said were
orphans from Darfur.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Jan 30, Thousands of striking
taxi drivers drove at a snail's pace around France as part of a protest
against government plans to open up their business to greater
competition.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan, In France, investigating
magistrates seized 23 notebooks of Yves Bertrand, former head of
Renseignements Genereaux (RG), one of the country’s domestic
intelligence services, as part of an inquiry into the “Clearstream
Affair.”
(Econ, 11/1/08, p.60)
2008 Feb 1, Chad's army fought to
drive off rebels who pushed to within 100 km (60 miles) of the capital
N'Djamena and the clashes delayed the deployment of European
peacekeepers. A French Defense Ministry official said France has sent
about 150 supplementary troops to Chad as a "precautionary measure" in
response to a rebel offensive.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2008 Feb 2, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy married former model Carla Bruni at the Elysee Palace.
(AP, 2/2/08)
2008 Feb 6, In France 7 doctors
and pharmacists went on trial for the deaths of more than 100 young
people who died of a brain-destroying disease after being treated with
tainted human growth hormones.
(AP, 2/6/08)
2008 Feb 7, Chadian President
Idriss Deby Itno issued a "solemn call" for a European peacekeeping
force for Darfur refugees, to deploy as soon as possible. The president
also said he was "ready to pardon" six French aid workers convicted in
December of trying to kidnap more than 100 children they said were
orphans from Darfur.
(AP, 2/7/08)(AFP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, NATO defense ministers
held talks on Afghanistan in Lithuania. France agreed to help Canada in
fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 8, France’s President
Nicolas Sarkozy pledged to send thousands of extra police and more than
$700 million in aid to neglected, heavily immigrant neighborhoods that
exploded in riots in 2005 and 2006.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 9, The French government
suspended the use of genetically modified corn crops in France while it
awaits EU approval for a full ban.
(AP, 2/9/08)
2008 Feb 12, President Nicolas
Sarkozy said France is ready to transfer technology to Brazil so that
an attack submarine, helicopters and the Rafale fighter plane can be
built there.
(AP, 2/12/08)
2008 Feb 18, More than 1,000
police raided housing projects outside Paris, detaining over 30 people
in a bid to find rioters who led an outburst of violence last year.
(AP, 2/18/08)
2008 Feb 18, Alain Robbe-Grillet
(85), avant-garde French author, died. He dispensed with conventional
storytelling as a pioneer of the postwar "new novel" movement.
(AP, 2/18/08)
2008 Feb 27, French ambassador
Bernard Bajolet said France has handed Algeria details of radioactive
leaks from nuclear tests in the Algerian desert in the 1960s and should
have acted earlier to clean up the damage.
(Reuters, 2/27/08)
2008 Feb 28, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy, following talks with South African President Thabo
Mbeki in South Africa, announced a "renegotiation" of all French
military accords with African nations, arguing that France no longer
had a "policing" role to play on the continent. French power giant
Alstom announced a 1.36 billion euro (two-billion-dollar) contract for
the construction of a coal-fuelled power plant in South Africa which is
suffering from a severe electricity shortage.
(AFP, 2/28/08)
2008 Feb 28, In Paris the body of
former top model Katoucha Niane (47) was found in the River Seine. The
former model and speaker against female circumcision went missing in
January. Her 2007 book, "Katoucha, In My Flesh," described her own
experience with female circumcision at age 9.
(AP, 2/29/08)(AP, 3/7/08)
2008 Feb 29, France and
energy-hungry South Africa signed three economic accords, including one
for the construction of a 1.36-billion euro coal-fuelled power plant by
French energy giant Alstom.
(AP, 2/29/08)
2008 Feb, Renault SA invested $1
billion for a 25% stake in Russian car maker OAO Avtovaz.
(WSJ, 3/21/08, p.A1)(Econ, 6/7/08, p.74)
2008 Mar 4, France pinned the
blame on Sudanese forces for a shooting near the border with Chad that
left one French soldier wounded and another missing and asked Sudanese
authorities for help in locating the missing soldier. Sgt. Gilles
Pollin’s remains were formally identified Mar 7 and flown to Paris from
Khartoum.
(AP, 3/4/08)(AP, 3/7/08)
2008 Mar 9, French voters went to
the polls for local elections predicted to deliver yet more bad news to
Nicolas Sarkozy, whose popularity has plummeted since his triumphant
presidential victory last year.
(AP, 3/9/08)
2008 Mar 15, Alitalia, Italy’s
state-owned national airline, accepted a takeover offer worth $217 made
by air France-KLM, a French-Dutch airline group. The Italian government
accepted the offer on March 17.
(Econ, 3/22/08, p.73)
2008 Mar 16, In France the
Socialists took an estimated 49% of the vote, against 47.5% for the
Pres. Sarkozy’s UMP. Socialists now control 58% of towns with more than
30,000 inhabitants, after winning 40 from the right including several
bastions.
(AFP, 3/17/08)
2008 Mar 16, In France a pipe
ruptured while a tanker was being loaded at a Total refinery. Some
3,000 barrels of fuel oil leaked in and along the Loire River.
(AP, 3/18/08)
2008 Mar 19, Chantal Sebire (52),
who suffered from a painful facial tumor and had drawn headlines across
France with her quest for doctor-assisted suicide, was found dead. On
Mar 17 a court in the city of Dijon rejected her request to be allowed
to receive a lethal dose of barbiturates under a doctor's supervision.
(AP, 3/20/08)
2008 Mar 21, President Nicolas
Sarkozy announced a modest cut in France's nuclear arsenal, to less
than 300 warheads, and urged China and the United States to commit to
no more weapons tests.
(AP, 3/21/08)
2008 Mar 26, French Pres. Nicolas
Sarkozy vowed to open a new chapter in ties with Britain as he arrived
for a state visit which he hopes will also help repair his image as a
statesman.
(AP, 3/26/08)
2008 Mar 27, Comorans staged angry
anti-French protests as France decided whether to give ousted rebel
leader Mohamed Bacar asylum after he fled to its Indian Ocean territory
of Mayotte.
(AP, 3/27/08)
2008 Mar 30, The Pritzker jury
announced French architect jean Nouvel (62) as the winner of the 2008
Pritzker Prize.
(WSJ, 3/31/08, p.A5)
2008 Mar 30, Pernod Ricard SA, a
French spirits company, agreed to pay the Swedish government 5.28
billion euros for Vin & Sprit, the maker of Absolut, outbidding
three competitors.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Mar 31, Chad's state radio
announced that the president has pardoned six French aid workers
convicted of kidnapping 103 children.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Apr 1, In France the
stockmarket watchdog Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF) filed a
formal complaint against the European Aeronautic Defense and Space
Company, the parent company of Airbus, and more than a dozen current
and former executives. It confirmed evidence of massive insider trading
in shares of EADS in late 2005 and early 2006 in the knowledge that the
A380 airbus program was in deep trouble.
(Econ, 6/21/08, p.80)(http://tinyurl.com/3kd8vh)
2008 Apr 2, France pledged to send
up to 1,000 troops to Afghanistan in a move that will avert a Canadian
threat to pull its contingent out of NATO's war in the violent south.
(Reuters, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, Chad's main rebel
group urged former colonial ruler France to stop backing President
Idriss Deby Itno and cease flying over rebel positions in the central
African nation's restive east.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 3, French protesters
hurled bottles and stones at riot police who responded with tear gas
during a march by high school students in Paris over teacher job cuts.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 3, Alitalia edged closer
to bankruptcy protection after Air France-KLM abruptly broke off talks
to buy the struggling national airline and Alitalia's chairman of seven
months resigned in frustration.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 4, Pirate attackers off
Somalia’s coast stormed the 288-foot Le Ponant as it returned without
passengers from the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean. French officials
hoped to avoid using force to free the 30 crew members.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 7, Security officials
extinguished the Olympic torch three times as protests against China's
human rights record turned a relay through Paris into a chaotic series
of stops and starts. France's former sports minister, Jean-Francois
Lamour, said that though the torch had been put out, the Olympic flame
itself still burned in the lantern where it is kept overnight and on
airplane flights.
(AP, 4/7/08)
2008 Apr 9, In Peru 5 French
tourists visiting the Nazca lines were killed when their small plane
crashed after becoming tangled in power lines.
(AP, 4/9/08)
2008 Apr 11, Foreign Minister
Bernard Kouchner said France will boost its contribution to NATO forces
fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan to some 3,000 troops,
around double the present level.
(AP, 4/11/08)
2008 Apr 11, French officials said
pirates have freed the 30 crew from Le Ponant, a French luxury sailing
ship, which was seized off Somalia on April 4, and had been tailed by
the French Navy. Helicopter-borne French troops seized 6 of the dozen
hostage takers, after the hostages were freed, and recovered sacks of
money, apparently ransom paid by the ship’s owners.
(AFP, 4/11/08)(SFC, 4/12/08, p.A9)
2008 Apr 15, French high school
students threw bottles and rocks on the fringes of a Paris
demonstration that drew thousands of protesters to a march against a
government plan to cut teaching jobs.
(AP, 4/16/08)
2008 Apr 18, In Morocco French PM
Francois Fillon announced the signing of economic tie-ups with Morocco,
alongside the sale of a naval warship to aid defense coordination.
(AP, 4/18/08)
2008 Apr 19, In France the charred
body of Sussanna Zetterberg (19), a Swedish teenager, was discovered in
woods outside Paris just hours after she left a nightclub. A postmortem
showed she had been stabbed.
(Reuters, 4/24/08)
2008 Apr 21, The Paris city
council bestowed the title of "honorary citizen" on the Dalai Lama.
(AP, 4/21/08)
2008 Apr 22,
Alitalia flew into the unknown after Air France-KLM withdrew its
takeover offer, leaving Italy's long-struggling flagship airline with
little choice but to contemplate bankruptcy or receivership. The
outgoing center-left government allowed a loan of €300 million to
Alitalia.
(AP, 4/22/08)(Econ, 4/26/08, p.68)
2008 May 1, Rescuers found the
bodies of five French ski mountaineers who had been missing since the
day before when they were swept away by an avalanche during an
excursion on Punta Basei, a 10,000-foot peak in Italy's northwestern
Alps.
(AP, 5/1/08)
2008 May 14, A French court handed
down jail sentences to seven men convicted of running a network that
recruited poor young Muslims in Paris to fight in the Iraqi insurgency.
(AFP, 5/14/08)
2008 May 15, In France hundreds of
thousands of teachers and other public sector workers went on strike to
protest jobs cuts and other changes proposed by Pres. Sarkozy’s
government.
(WSJ, 5/16/08, p.A8)
2008 May 20, Xavier Lopez Pena
(49), the suspected leader of the Basque separatist group ETA, was
detained along with three other suspected ETA members in a sweep on an
apartment in the French city of Bordeaux just before midnight.
(AP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, Hundreds of French
fishermen clashed with police in Paris and severely disrupted
cross-Channel traffic as they stepped up a 10-day-old protest against
soaring fuel costs.
(AFP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 22, Tens of thousands of
French workers took to the streets as unions mounted a one-day show of
force against President Nicolas Sarkozy's government over pension
reforms.
(AP, 5/22/08)
2008 May 25, The French film “The
Class” (Entre les Murs) won the Palm d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
It was based on m a book by Francois Begaudeau. Matteo Garrone’s
“Gomorrah,” a study of the criminal underworld in Naples, won the grand
prize. Paolo Sorrentino’s “Il Divo,” a portrait of former Premier
Giulio Andreotti, won the jury award.
(SFC, 5/26/08, p.F5)(Econ, 5/31/08, p.89)
2008 May 29, In France Pres.
Sarkozy’s government presented a draft bill that would effectively
scrap the 35-hour workweek.
(WSJ, 5/30/08, p.A9)
2008 May 30, Jordan and France
signed an agreement to help the Arab kingdom develop its nuclear energy
program.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 Jun 1, Yves Saint Laurent
(b.1936, one of the most influential and enduring designers of the 20th
century, died in Paris.
(AP, 6/2/08)
2008 Jun 2, In eastern France at
least five people were killed when a train crashed into a bus carrying
schoolchildren near Allinges.
(AP, 6/2/08)
2008 Jun 3, In France a Paris
court convicted Brigitte Bardot of provoking discrimination and racial
hatred for writing that Muslims are destroying France. She was fined
$23,325.
(SFC, 6/4/08, p.A4)
2008 Jun 6, Dr. Paul Tessier
(b.1917), pioneering French surgeon, died in Paris. He introduced
innovative techniques in facial surgery.
(WSJ, 6/28/08, p.A7)
2008 Jun 16, It was reported that
France will slash 54,000 defense jobs and boost funding for space- and
land-based military intelligence, according to a new strategy aimed at
adapting the country's forces to evolving threats.
(AP, 6/16/08)
2008 Jun 18, Classic French
filmmaker Jean Delannoy (100), who adapted novels by Victor Hugo and
Andre Gide and won the Cannes Film Festival's top prize in 1946, died.
(AP, 6/19/08)
2008 Jun 19, In France a man
suspected of stealing $15 million of historic treasures from churches
was arrested. The 30-year-old suspect was taken into custody by police
in Saint-Ouen, north of Paris, after he allegedly asked an antiques
dealer to sell an object stolen from a church in Normandy.
(AP, 6/19/08)
2008 Jun 20, A rocket carrying a
US-French satellite for monitoring ocean surface height was launched
from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The data will be used to
monitor climate change effects on sea level.
(SFC, 6/21/08, p.A3)
2008 Jun 21, Paris Mayor Bernard
Delanoe blamed "organized gangs" for clashes overnight near the Eiffel
Tower between police and high school students celebrating the end of
their final exams. 29 people were arrested, and 22 kept in custody,
after the unrest in the Champ de Mars park.
(AFP, 6/21/08)
2008 Jun 21, Four French
nationals, all Niger-based employees of the nuclear company Areva, were
abducted by rebels from the Movement for Justice in a part of Niger
known for its uranium mines. They were freed on June 25.
(AP, 6/25/08)
2008 Jun 23, In Jerusalem French
President Nicolas Sarkozy said there could be no Mideast peace unless
Israel drops its refusal to cede sovereignty over parts of Jerusalem
claimed by the Palestinians, challenging one of Israel's most
emotionally held positions.
(AP, 6/24/08)
2008 Jun 29, In France a shooting
at a military show injured 17 people when real bullets were used
instead of blanks. Gen. Bruno Cuche, the head of France's army,
resigned following the shooting.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jun 29, The bound and
battered bodies of Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, both 23, were
found in a burning ground-floor bedsit (studio) in New Cross, southeast
London. Bonomo was stabbed nearly 200 times while Ferez suffered around
50 wounds during a prolonged ordeal. The two scholars, both biochemists
from a university in Clermont-Ferrand, central France, were on a short
exchange program at London's Imperial College. On July 7 Nigel Edward
Farmer (33) turned himself in at a London police station.
(AFP, 7/3/08)(AP, 7/6/08)(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jun 30, A French court
ordered online auctioneer eBay to pay nearly 40 million euros in
damages to Louis Vuitton for selling fake luxury goods, in a ruling
cheered as a victory for copyright protection.
(AP, 6/30/08)
2008 Jun 30, Brahim Deby, the
eldest son of Chad’s President Idriss Deby, was found dead in the
basement of his apartment building in a Paris suburb. He was
asphyxiated by chemicals from a fire extinguisher that lay near his
body. In late November Romanian police arrested a French-Romanian
national identified as Marius C. after on a warrant from France.
(AP,
11/28/08)(www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02560147.htm)
2008 Jul 1, France took over the
rotating presidency of the European Union with high-level meetings and
a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 1, French officials said
the asbestos-contaminated aircraft carrier Clemenceau, which was towed
half-way across the globe in a failed bid to have it dismantled, will
be broken up by Able UK in Britain. The ship was decommissioned in 1997.
(AFP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 7, European Union nations
gave their backing to a French-drafted pact calling for tightening
immigration and asylum rules across the 27-nation bloc.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 9, US electronic games
publisher Activision under Bobby Kotick closed its merger with the
gaming arm of Vivendi, a French media conglomerate, in a deal valued at
$18.8 billion.
(Econ, 8/15/09,
p.60)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision_Blizzard)
2008 Jul 10, In France four people
were found shot dead near the southwestern city of Toulouse. A fifth
victim died later in hospital.
(AFP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 12, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy met his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak, kicking off
a round of diplomacy with Middle East leaders ahead of an
EU-Mediterranean summit. Sarkozy said that Syria and Lebanon will open
embassies in each other's countries for the first time. Syria's leader
cautioned there was still work to be done before that could happen.
(AP, 7/12/08)(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 13, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy urged the disparate and conflicted countries around the
Mediterranean Sea to make peace as European rivals did in the 20th
century as he launched an unprecedented Union for the Mediterranean. 43
nations, including Israel and Arab states, pledged to work for a Middle
East free of weapons of mass destruction at the close of a summit to
launch an unprecedented Union for the Mediterranean aimed at securing
peace across the restive region.
(AP, 7/13/08)(AP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 16, In France the first
stone was laid at the Louvre's new Arts of Islam gallery, the first
major modern architectural addition to the museum since its famed glass
pyramid was built in the 1980s.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 21, President Nicolas
Sarkozy's risky bid to rewrite France's political rules with sweeping
constitutional changes worked, but just barely, with both houses of
parliament meeting in special session to pass the measures by a single
vote. The reform gives parliament greater power but also adds a new
privileges to France's already strong presidency, notably allowing the
chief of state to address together the two houses of congress. However,
it limits the president to two five-year terms.
(AP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 23, France passed a new
law to let companies negotiate longer working hours with union
representatives, all but squelching the 35-hour week.
(Econ, 7/26/08, p.61)
2008 Jul 24, French PM Francois
Fillon said a 15% cut in military manpower and base closings will save
billions of dollars. The military ranks will be cut by 54,000.
(SFC, 7/25/08, p.A12)
2008 Jul 24, French giant
automaker Renault said it will cut about 5,000 jobs in Europe among
measures to reduce costs by 10 percent as it prepares for a sharp and
possibly rocky downturn.
(AFP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 25, The EU and South
Africa began their first-ever summit in the French city of Bordeaux.
Brussels solidly backed Pretoria's mediating role in Zimbabwe as the
only way of ending ruinous political chaos.
(AFP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 25, US presidential
hopeful Barack Obama met with Pres. Sarkozy during a short stop in
Paris.
(SFC, 7/26/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 28, Pierre Beres
(b.1913), king of the French booksellers, died.
(SFC, 8/4/08, p.B3)
2008 Aug 5, Rwanda formally
accused senior French officials of involvement in its 1994 genocide.
(Reuters, 8/5/08)
2008 Aug 6, France accused Rwanda
of making "unacceptable accusations" by alleging Paris played an active
role in the 1994 genocide, but said it was still determined to mend
damaged ties with Kigali.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 13, Henri Cartan
(b.1904), French mathematician, died in Paris. In 1956 he and Samuel
Eilenberg wrote a fundamental textbook on homological algebra.
(SFC, 8/25/08, p.B3)
2008 Aug 18, In eastern
Afghanistan a suicide car bomb blew up outside Camp Salerno, a US
military base in Khost, killing 12 civilian laborers, as the country
marked Independence Day. A mine blew up a police vehicle in the
province of Nangarhar and killed two policemen. About 100 insurgents
ambushed a group of French paratroopers, killing 10 soldiers in an area
outside the capital known as a militant stronghold. An Afghan official
said insurgents kidnapped four of the soldiers and later killed them.
13 militants were reported killed [see Oct 15, 2009].
(AFP, 8/18/08)(AP, 8/19/08)(Econ, 8/34/08, p.34)
2008 Aug 19, Zambia's President
Levy Mwanawasa (b.1948) died in France. He had been hospitalized at a
French military hospital since suffering a stroke in June.
(AP, 8/19/08)(SFC, 8/20/08, p.B4)
2008 Aug 23, The Tibetan spiritual
leader, the Dalai Lama, left Paris on a flight bound for New Delhi
after concluding a 12-day visit that fuelled tensions between Paris and
Beijing.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 24, A wall of snow in the
Mont Blanc range of the French Alps buried 3 Swiss and 5 Austrian
climbers.
(AFP, 8/24/08)
2008 Aug 29, French neurosurgeons
said they had successfully treated brain tumors through ultra-keyhole
surgery, using a tiny fiber-optic laser to destroy cancerous cells.
(AFP, 8/29/08)
2008 Sep 3, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy encouraged Syria to pursue face-to-face peace talks
with Israel during his first trip to the Arab nation, a visit also
aimed at undercutting Iranian influence in Damascus.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 8, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy pressed Moscow to honor its pledge to withdraw troops
from Georgia, while Russian soldiers prevented international aid
convoys from visiting Georgian villages in a tense zone around the
breakaway province of South Ossetia.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 8, Legal sources said the
Church of Scientology is to be tried for fraud, and seven of its
members for illegally prescribing drugs, in the latest clash between
French officials and the controversial religion.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 9, The 27-member EU
stopped short of offering Ukraine membership during an EU-Ukraine
summit hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. But the two sides
began work on an "association accord," a step that offers closer
political and economic ties and in the past has been designed to
prepare nations for eventual membership.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 11, A Paris court
convicted Didier Bourguet, a former UN employee, for the rape of young
Africans during his postings in Central African Republic and Congo.
Bourguet was sentenced to nine years in prison for having committed
about 20 rapes of teenage girls between 1998 and 2004 during his
postings as a mechanic for the UN.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, Israeli divers found
a red suitcase containing a small skull, bones and clothes, which
police said may belong to Rose Pizem, a 4-year-old French girl missing
since May, whose grandfather is jailed in the slaying.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 12, British and French
firefighters extinguished a 1,000-degree inferno in the Channel Tunnel
but tens of thousands of travelers faced more delay as they waited for
the undersea link to reopen.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 12, Pope Benedict XVI
urged France to take Christianity into account despite its secular
tradition, saying on his first visit there as pontiff that church and
state should be open to each other.
(AP, 9/12/08)
2008 Sep 14, France's ecology
minister said the government is considering a "picnic tax" on
disposable dishes to encourage people to use reusable plates and cups
instead.
(AP, 9/14/08)
2008 Sep 15, French troops stormed
a yacht hijacked by Somali pirates, killing one, capturing six others
and freeing their two French hostages, who had been held since Sep 2.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 18, The Bank of China
announced that it would take a 20% stake in the French arm of LCF
Rothschild, its first investment in a euro-zone bank.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.77)
2008 Sep 20, It was reported that
Muslims in France, about 8% of the population, were estimated to make
up over half the prison population.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.69)
2008 Sep 24, French power provider
EDF said it has agreed to acquire British Energy Group PLC for about
$23.2 billion in cash in a deal that would create a powerhouse in
nuclear energy.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Oct 4, The leaders of
Britain, France, Germany and Italy began meeting in Paris at a summit
on the world financial crisis threatening banks, growth and jobs across
the continent. They vowed to do all they could to prevent Wall Street's
turmoil from destabilizing their banking systems. Germany's No. 2
commercial property lender, Hypo Real Estate Holding AG, said its $48
billion rescue plan had unraveled when private banks pulled out.
(AP, 10/5/08)
2008 Oct 6, Three European
scientists shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine for separate
discoveries of viruses that cause AIDS and cervical cancer,
breakthroughs that helped doctors fight the deadly diseases. French
researchers Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier were cited for
their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV; while
Germany's Harald zur Hausen was honored for finding human papilloma
viruses that cause cervical cancer,
(AP, 10/6/08)
2008 Oct 6, In France
Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, the son of a late French president, an
Israeli-Russian billionaire and 40 other people charged with
trafficking arms to war-riven Angola or taking kickbacks faced judges
in a long-awaited trial in Paris. Prosecutors alleged that French
businessman Pierre Falcone and Arkady Gaydamak, an Israeli tycoon based
in France at the time, organized the sale of Russian arms to Angola
from 1993-2000, for a total of US$791 million, in breach of French
government rules. In 2009 Falcone and Gaydamak were sentenced to 6
years in prison.
(AP, 10/6/08)(Econ, 10/31/09, p.62)
2008 Oct 6, In France traders at
Groupe Caisse d’Epargne bank, founded in 1818, began trading in equity
derivatives hoping the market would rise. The irregular trades were
unwound at a loss of some $808 million.
(WSJ, 10/18/08, p.B1)
2008 Oct 9, The Swedish Academy
announced French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (b.1940)) as the
2008 Nobel Prize in literature for his poetic adventure and "sensual
ecstasy." Le Clezio made his breakthrough as a novelist with "Desert,"
in 1980.
(AP, 10/9/08)
2008 Oct 9, Ethiopia signed a
220-million-euro (300 million dollar) deal with a French company for
the construction of Africa's largest wind farm.
(AP, 10/10/08)
2008 Oct 13, Guillaume Depardieu
(37), French film star, died of pneumonia. The often-troubled son of
renowned French film star Gerard Depardieu had gained praise for his
own career as an actor. In 2003 he Depardieu had his right leg
amputated to end years of pain from a bacterial infection that followed
a motorcycle accident in 1996.
(AP, 10/14/08)
2008 Oct 17, Some 30 leaders of
French-speaking nations attended a 3-day summit of French-speaking
nations in Quebec City, Canada. The focus was dominated by the world's
financial woes.
(AFP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 19, The French Cabinet's
spokesman said "swindlers" last month broke into the personal bank
account of President Nicolas Sarkozy and swiped small sums of money.
More than 30,000 demonstrators marched across Paris to denounce the
conservative government's budget restrictions, job cuts and other
controversial reforms in the public education system. On Oct 21 police
arrested two men suspected of stealing the bank details of several
people without realizing the identity of their victims. They are
believed to have used small sums to pay mobile telephone bills.
(AP, 10/19/08)(AP, 10/21/08)
2008 Oct 20, The French government
allocated €10.5 billion among six of its banks.
(Econ, 10/25/08, p.89)
2008 Oct 20, Sister Emmanuelle
(b.1908), a Belgian-born nun who devoted her life to helping the poor
in North Africa and in France, died in France. Madeleine Cinquin had
spent 20 years working with children in a slum in Cairo as part of a
lengthy career helping the dispossessed.
(AFP, 10/20/08)
2008 Oct 21, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy backed the creation of sovereign wealth funds in Europe
that, when coordinated, could provide an "industrial response" to the
financial crisis.
(AFP, 10/21/08)
2008 Oct 23, France’s Pres.
Sarkozy unveiled a strategic national investment fund that will buy
stakes in French industries with borrowed money to protect them from
foreign predators.
(Econ, 11/1/08, p.62)
2008 Oct 23, A Paris criminal
court convicted nine people including a French-Algerian former prison
inmate who admitted establishing an Islamic group that called for armed
jihad in France.
(AP, 10/24/08)
2008 Oct 23, The French Navy
captured nine pirates near the Gulf of Aden finding anti-tank missiles,
other weapons and ship boarding gear on the boats. A Somali pirate
warned that if a hijacked Ukrainian arms ship was attacked the ship's
20-man crew would be killed.
(AP, 10/23/08)
2008 Oct 23, An Italian military
helicopter crashed in northeastern France, killing all eight people on
board.
(AP, 10/23/08)
2008 Oct 31, Heavily-armed pirates
swarmed aboard an oil industry support vessel working off the coast of
Cameroon and kidnapped 10 of 15 crew members, including six Frenchmen.
A man claiming to represent a rebel group opposed to Cameroon's
takeover of the Bakassi Peninsula warned the hostages would be killed
unless Cameroonian officials agreed to reopen the issue.
(AFP, 10/31/08)
2008 Nov 2, The Moroccan
government banned an issue of the French magazine L'Express
International, claiming it insults Islam in articles exploring the
relationship between that religion and Christianity.
(AP, 11/3/08)
2008 Nov 3, In Afghanistan gunmen
abducted Dany Egreteau (32), a French aid worker in Kabul, and shot
dead an Afghan man who tried to rescue him. The Taliban said it was not
involved. Afghan and coalition troops seized 40 tons of hashish during
a raid in Nawa Kili village in southern Kandahar province.
(AFP, 11/3/08)(AP, 11/3/08)
2008 Nov 5, In Somalia 6 employees
of the French aid group Action Against Hunger were kidnapped in the
town of Dhusamareb. They included four non-Somali workers and two
chauffeurs.
(AP, 11/5/08)
2008 Nov 9, Rose Kabuye, Rwanda
Pres. Kagame's chief of protocol, was arrested at Frankfurt airport on
an international warrant issued in 2006 by French anti-terrorism judge
Jean-Louis Bruguiere.
(AFP, 11/10/08)
2008 Nov 10, Afghan writer Atiq
Rahimi won France's top book prize, the Goncourt, for a novel penned in
French, "Syngue Sabour", or Stone of Patience.
(AFP, 11/10/08)
2008 Nov 11, French police
arrested 10 people, described as anarchists, suspected for the recent
sabotaging of high-speed trains. In 5 instances since late October iron
rods were jammed into power cables in order to hold up trains.
(WSJ, 11/12/08, p.A12)
2008 Nov 14, Nearly half of Air
France's flights were grounded by a pilots' strike expected to last
through the weekend.
(AP, 11/14/08)
2008 Nov 17, French police
arrested ETA's alleged military chief, the most wanted Basque
separatist still at large and a man Spanish officials branded a
"bloodthirsty terrorist." Miguel De Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina (35),
alias "Txeroki", was captured in Cauterets, a spa and ski resort in the
Pyrenees near the border with Spain's autonomous Basque region. On Nov
24 Spain indicted Aspiazu and four other men over the car bombing at a
Madrid airport parking garage on Dec. 30, 2006.
(AFP, 11/17/08)(AP, 11/24/08)
2008 Nov 19, Germany extradited to
France Rose Kabuye (47), chief of protocol to Rwandan President Paul
Kagame, over an assassination triggering the 1994 genocide, amid mass
anti-European protests in Kigali. Some European investigators feared
that Kabuye deliberately delivered herself to German authorities so her
lawyers could gain access to the case files prepared against her and
other Kagame allies.
(AFP, 11/19/08)
2008 Nov 20, The 2008 edition of
Beaujolais Nouveau wine arrived, and vintners hoped it will lift
spirits despite the financial crisis and a dismal crop.
(AP, 11/20/08)
2008 Nov 22, The French Socialist
Party said that Martine Aubry, the architect of France's 35-hour work
week, has won the party's leadership in an extremely tight race, an
outcome quickly challenged by partisans of rival Segolene Royal.
(AP, 11/22/08)
2008 Nov 22, In Afghanistan a
French trooper was killed and another wounded when a mine engulfed them
about 10 kilometers (six miles) south of Kabul. A bomb exploded in a
vegetable market in the eastern town of Khost, killing a 15-year-old
boy and a man passing-by. Another bomb blew up a police vehicle in the
central province of Ghazni and killed three policemen and wounded two.
The bullet-riddled body of Ghais Haqmal, the governor of Marawara
district, was found in Kunar province. He had been abducted by Taliban
three months ago and the militants had demanded the release of 50 of
their jailed comrades in exchange for his life. The US-led military
announced that troops had killed 14 insurgents in operations in the
southern provinces of Helmand and Farah in the past two days. Afghan
and coalition forces killed 17 insurgents in air strikes in the
southern province of Kandahar. The government of the central province
of Ghazni said its forces had thwarted a Taliban attack on the Ab Band
district administration center killing eight gunmen.
(AFP, 11/22/08)(AFP, 11/23/08)
2008 Nov 27, An Airbus A320
passenger plane crashed off France's southern coast during a
maintenance flight, killing 3 people and leaving the 4 others on board
missing.
(AP, 11/28/08)(AP, 12/1/08)
2008 Nov 29, In Qatar French
President Nicolas Sarkozy told Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir to
take action to end the conflict in Darfur.
(AFP, 11/29/08)
2008 Dec 4, In France armed
robbers, some disguised as women, snatched euro85 million ($108
million) worth of diamond rings, necklaces and luxury watches from a
Harry Winston boutique on a posh Paris avenue in one of the largest
jewel heists in history. In June, 2009, French police arrested 25
suspects in connection with the robbery and recovered some of the
jewelry.
(AP, 12/5/08)(SFC, 6/23/09, p.A2)
2008 Dec 7, China protested
strongly to France over President Nicolas Sarkozy's meeting with the
Dalai Lama, calling it a "rude intervention" into Chinese affairs.
(AP, 12/7/08)
2008 Dec 8, British and French
leaders met with European business executives to discuss plans for
major government spending on infrastructure and energy projects aimed
at helping Europe to beat the downturn.
(AP, 12/8/08)
2008 Dec 8, French police arrested
the suspected military chief and "No. 1 member" of ETA, a new blow to
the banned Basque militant group just weeks after his alleged
predecessor was caught.
(AP, 12/9/08)
2008 Dec 9, In Paris, France,
entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, Jordan's Queen Noor and other
dignitaries launched an ambitious project aimed at eliminating the
world's nuclear weapons over the next 25 years.
(AP, 12/9/08)
2008 Dec 11, As Greece suffered
through its sixth day of violence, there were troubling signs of unrest
spreading across Europe. Angry youths smashed shop windows, attacked
banks and hurled bottles at police in small but violent protests in
Spain and Denmark, while cars were set alight outside a consulate in
France.
(AP, 12/11/08)
2008 Dec 16, French police found
explosives hidden in a Paris department store after a tip-off from a
group demanding the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan.
(Reuters, 12/16/08)
2008 Dec 16, French competition
watchdogs slapped a record fine of 575 million euros (785 million
dollars) on global steel giant ArcelorMittal and another 10 steel firms
found guilty of price-fixing.
(AFP, 12/16/08)
2008 Dec 19, France’s finance
ministry unveiled a package of financial aid from the EU and others
totaling $10.7 billion to help Latvia.
(WSJ, 12/20/08, p.A8)
2008 Dec 23, Brazil and France
signed an arms deal that could lead to Latin America's first nuclear
submarine.
(AP, 12/23/08)
2008 Dec 29, Ted Lapidus (b.1929),
French fashion designer who redefined chic with the 1960s unisex look,
died. Lapidus created his label in 1951, and in 1963 became a member of
the prestigious Paris fashion club that runs haute-couture, La Chambre
Syndicale de la Haute Couture.
(AP, 12/30/08)
2009 Jan 1, Somali pirates seized
the Blue Star, an Egyptian cargo ship, and its 28 crewmembers. A
Malaysian military helicopter saved an Indian tanker from being
hijacked in the new year's first attacks by pirates in the dangerous
Gulf of Aden. A crew of the French warship "PM L'Her" dispatch boat
intercepted two speedboats carrying 8 Somali pirates as they were
preparing to board a Panamanian cargo ship. The Blue Star and its crew
of 28 were freed on March 5 after a ransom was dropped from a plane.
(AP, 1/1/09)(AP, 1/2/09)(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Jan 4, A French warship
foiled attempts by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden to seize two
cargo vessels and intercepted 19 people.
(AFP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 4, Gunmen hijacked a
vessel and 9 crewmen belonging to French oil services group Bourbon off
Nigeria's Niger Delta as it traveled toward a Royal Dutch Shell
offshore oilfield. The 9 crewmen: five Nigerians, two Ghanaians, one
Cameroonian and one Indonesian aboard. were released on Dec 7.
(Reuters, 1/4/09)(AP, 1/6/09)(AP, 1/7/09)
2009 Jan 6, Signs mounted that the
conflict in Gaza is starting to spill over into violence in Europe's
towns and cities, with assaults against Jews and arson attacks on
Jewish congregations in France, Sweden and Britain.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 10, Two British climbers,
including the youngest Briton to conquer Everest, fell hundreds of
meters to their deaths on Mont Blanc in the French Alps.
(AFP, 1/11/09)
2009 Jan 12, French teachers
hurled shoes and other objects at police to protest President Nicolas
Sarkozy's high school reforms, prompting police to respond with tear
gas.
(AP, 1/12/09)
2009 Jan 12, Alitalia's board
accepted Air France-KLM's offer to buy 25 percent of the company and
become its international partner.
(AP, 1/12/09)
2009 Jan 14, A French court
acquitted six doctors and pharmacists in the deaths of at least 114
people who contracted a brain-destroying disease after being treated
with tainted human growth hormones.
(AP, 1/14/09)
2009 Jan 15, A Luxembourg court
ordered Swiss bank UBS AG to pay French financial company Oddo &
Cie euro30 million ($40 million) it had invested in a fund linked to
the alleged fraud perpetrated by US financier Bernard Madoff.
(AP, 1/15/09)
2009 Jan 16, Frenchman Lluis Colet
broke the world record for the longest speech after rambling nonstop
for 124 hours about Spanish painter Salvador Dali, Catalan culture and
other topics.
(AFP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 17, A helicopter carrying
10 French soldiers crashed off the coast of Gabon in central Africa. At
least 2 survived and 2 were killed as rescuers searched for 6 missing.
(AP, 1/17/09)
2009 Jan 24, A storm killed 11
people in Spain, including four children who were killed when a sports
center collapsed near Barcelona, and four in France as high winds swept
across Spain and southern France.
(AP, 1/24/09)(AP, 1/25/09)
2009 Jan 27, In Mexico thieves,
apparently targeting people who exchange money at Mexico City's
international airport, shot a French citizen in the head. Authorities
warned that gangs have put lookouts at exchange windows in the
terminal. Mexico City prosecutors soon detained two suspects in the
shooting. French scientist Christopher Augur died at a Mexico City
hospital four days after his assault.
(AP, 1/27/09)(AP, 1/30/09)(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan 28, French PM Francois
Fillon said 1,000 French 1,650 soldiers would be pulled out from the
EUFOR mission to protect refugees in Chad. He also says France's
1,800-strong contingent in Ivory Coast will be reduced by half.
(AP, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 29, In France hundreds of
thousands of workers staged a nationwide strike to try to force
President Nicolas Sarkozy and business leaders to do more to protect
jobs and wages during the economic crisis.
(Reuters, 1/29/09)
2009 Feb 4, French-US telecom
equipment group Alcatel-Lucent said its net loss widened 48.5 percent
to 5.215 billion euros (6.5 billion dollars) in 2008, blaming asset
write-downs in a crumbling world economy.
(AFP, 2/4/09)
2009 Feb 4, French group Areva
signed a draft accord for the sale of two to six nuclear reactors to
India, a huge new market now open with the end of a nuclear trade
embargo on New Delhi.
(AFP, 2/4/09)
2009 Feb 9, The French government
said it would give $8.4 million in low interest loans to Renault SA and
PSA Peugeot-Citroen in exchange for pledges that the car makers won’t
close any factories of lay off workers in France for the duration of
the funding.
(WSJ, 2/10/09, p.B2)
2009 Feb 10, President Nicolas
Sarkozy made the first-ever visit by a French head of state to Iraq,
seeking to reassert French influence in the country even as the US
prepares to draw down its forces.
(AP, 2/10/09)
2009 Feb 15, French specialists
unveiled a new weapon against cancer, a molecular "decoy" that mimics
DNA damage and prompts cancerous cells to kill themselves.
(AFP, 2/16/09)
2009 Feb 16, France's top judicial
body recognized the French government's responsibility for the
deportation of Jews during World War II, the clearest such recognition
of the state's role in the Holocaust.
(AP, 2/16/09)
2009 Feb 16, Authorities
acknowledged that nuclear-armed submarines from Britain and France
collided in the Atlantic Ocean earlier this month, touching off new
concerns about the safety of the world's deep sea missile fleets. The
HMS Vanguard, the oldest vessel in Britain's nuclear-armed submarine
fleet, and the French Le Triomphant submarine, which was also carrying
nuclear missiles, both suffered minor damage in the collision.
(AP, 2/16/09)
2009 Feb 16, On the French island
of Guadeloupe police detained about 50 people after coming under a
barrage of stones as they tried to take down barricades. On Martinique
as many as 10,000 demonstrators marched through the narrow streets of
the capital to protest spiraling food prices and denounce the business
elite.
(AP, 2/16/09)
2009 Feb 17, France's lower house
of parliament unanimously passed a law granting government payments to
those who take time off work to care for dying relatives in their last
weeks of life.
(AP, 2/17/09)
2009 Feb 18, In Guadeloupe rioters
manning barricades fatally shot Jacques Bino, tax agent and union
member, in a housing project in Pointe-a-Pitre, as he returned home
from protests. This was the first death in unrest that has convulsed
France's Caribbean islands for weeks.
(AP, 2/18/09)
2009 Feb 19, France bowed to
demands for wage increases in Guadeloupe in the hope of ending a
month-long strike that has plunged the French Caribbean island into
rioting.
(AP, 2/19/09)
2009 Feb 22, In Egypt a group of
French teenagers on a school trip was hit hard by a bombing at a
landmark Cairo bazaar, which killed a 17-year-old girl on the tour and
wounded more than a dozen other students. Egyptian police soon arrested
three suspects.
(AP, 2/23/09)
2009 Feb 23, Finance Minister
Christine Lagarde said the French government is to provide 2.5-5.0
billion euros in loans to support the merger of banks Caisse d'Epargne
and Banque Populaire.
(AP, 2/23/09)
2009 Feb 24, France’s Pres.
Sarkozy and Italy’s Premier Berlusconi signed a deal pairing utilities
from each nation to study the feasibility of building nuclear power
plants in Italy.
(WSJ, 2/25/09, p.A11)
2009 Feb 24, A Paris appeals court
overturned five men's terror convictions, ruling that French
intelligence officials improperly questioned them while they were
detained at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay. Lawyers for the men:
Brahim Yadel, Khaled ben Mustafa, Nizar Sassi, Mourad Benchellali and
Ridouane Khalid, hailed the decision. During their 2007 Paris trial,
the five acknowledged having spent time in military training camps in
Afghanistan but they said they had never put their combat skills to use.
(AP, 2/24/09)
2009 Feb 25, In Paris an auction
of art works owned by the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent
concluded with dazzling sales of nearly $500 million. Two rare bronze
sculptures that disappeared from China nearly 150 years ago and
demanded back by Beijing, sold for millions. The Chinese businessman,
who bid $15.1 million, later refused payment.
(AP, 2/26/09)(Econ, 3/7/09, p.92)
2009 Feb 25, In Martinique vandals
burned cars and looted stores overnight, as violence spread to a second
French Caribbean island in protests over high prices, low pay and
alleged neglect by officials in Paris.
(AP, 2/25/09)
2009 Feb 27, The French film
industry awarded the best film Cesar to Martin Provost's "Seraphine."
Yolande Moreau, who plays Seraphine, won in the 34th annual Cesar
awards best actress category for her portrayal of the dimwitted maid
whose talents as a painter were discovered by a German art collector on
the eve of World War I. The Cesar for best actor went to Vincent Cassel
in "Mesrine," a story based on the real life of a gangster.
(AP, 2/2709)
2009 Mar 4, Channel tunnel
operator Eurotunnel said it will pay its first ever dividend after
making a net profit of 40 million euros in 2008 despite fire damage of
200 million euros (250 million dollars).
(AP, 3/4/09)
2009 Mar 7, In France a commuter
train slammed into a group of football fans who were walking on railway
tracks in a Paris suburb, killing two youths and injuring 11 people.
(AFP, 3/8/09)
2009 Mar 9, French lawmakers
passed an amendment to ban the sale of alcohol to teens under 18, part
of an effort to tackle the rise of binge drinking in a country known
for a relaxed attitude toward a little libation.
(AP, 3/10/09)
2009 Mar 11, French Pres. Sarkozy
announced that France will return as full-fledged member of the
26-naqtion NATO alliance.
(SFC, 3/12/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 16, Bernard d’Espagnat
(87), French physicist and philosopher, was named in Paris as the
winner of this year’s $1.42 million Templeton Prize.
(SFC, 3/17/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 17, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy's government won a parliamentary confidence vote
prompted by his plans to rejoin NATO's military command, which many
legislators fear would compromise France's independence.
(AP, 3/17/09)
2009 Mar 19, In France hundreds of
thousands of people began protests expected to draw at least a million
demonstrators to the streets to denounce President Nicolas Sarkozy's
handling of the economic crisis.
(Reuters, 3/19/09)
2009 Mar 20, In France several
teenagers were taken into custody after 11 adults were injured in a
pellet gun shooting near a nursery school in Lyon.
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Mar 24, The French government
offered for the first time to compensate victims of nuclear tests in
Algeria and the South Pacific, bowing to decades of pressure by people
sickened by radiation.
(AP, 3/24/09)
2009 Mar 24, Striking French
workers for US manufacturer 3M held their boss hostage amid labor talks
at a plant south of Paris, as anger over layoffs and cutbacks mounted
around the country. Manager Luc Rousselet was released after being held
for 2 days.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 26, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy visited Brazzaville and Kinshasa. During the Kinshasa
trip, given over in large part to regional political issues, Areva
signed an agreement with the government allowing the company to
prospect for and mine uranium.
(AP, 3/27/09)
2009 Mar 26, An official said
France will limit or ban bonuses and stock options for executives at
companies bailed out with taxpayer money, as the government scrambled
to calm public outrage at what some see as the greed that caused the
global financial crisis.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 27, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy wrapped up his mini-tour of three African countries,
after meeting with Niger leader Mamadou Tandja. This followed visits to
Kinshasa and Brazzaville.
(AFP, 3/27/09)
2009 Mar 29, The mostly Muslim
Indian Ocean island of Mayotte overwhelmingly voted to integrate fully
with France, a move that will bring financial benefits to residents but
also outlaw practices like polygamy and early marriages.
(AP, 3/29/09)
2009 Mar 29, Maurice Jarre
(b.1924), Oscar-winning French composer, died in LA. His film scores
included “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Doctor Zhivago.”
(Econ, 4/18/09,
p.92)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Jarre)
2009 Mar 30, The French government
banned companies that get state funding from issuing stock options to
top managers and limited some other forms of compensation in an effort
to quell public anger over executive pay.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.B1)
2009 Mar 31, Angry French workers
facing layoffs at a Caterpillar factory briefly detained four of their
bosses at the US manufacturer's plant in the Alps to protest job cuts.
(AP, 3/31/09)
2009 Apr 3, In France US Pres.
Obama won enthusiastic support for his new Afghan war strategy from
French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy, who pledged more police trainers and
civilian aid.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, NATO began its 2-day
60th anniversary summit in France and Germany.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 4, France and Germany
fully endorsed President Barack Obama's new Afghan war strategy but
firmly resisted sending more combat troops in a rift that overshadowed
symbols of unity at NATO 60th-anniversary summit. NATO's European
leaders pledged a significant increase in troops for the US-led war in
Afghanistan at their summit, but the alliance seemed sure to arouse
hostility in the Muslim world by choosing the controversial Danish PM
Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the alliance's new secretary general. All 28
NATO leaders unanimously approved Rasmussen as the new civilian leader
of the alliance. Black-clad protesters attacked police and set a hotel
and a customs station ablaze near a bridge linking France and Germany
that served hours earlier as the backdrop for a show of unity by NATO
leaders.
(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 4, In Sudan armed men in
the Darfur kidnapped two aid workers Claire Dubois of France and
Canadian Stephanie Jodoin, of Aid Medicale International (AMI). They
were seized from their compound in the south Darfur settlement of Ed el
Fursan. Both women were released on April 29.
(AFP, 4/5/09)(Reuters, 4/12/09)(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 Apr 8, In France workers at a
British-owned adhesives factory held three British executives and a
local manager captive over plans to close the site down. Scapa, which
announced in February it would close its plant in Bellegarde, said it
was forced to cut back after the market for car industry adhesives
collapsed by 50 percent in 2008. The managers were released after being
held overnight.
(AP, 4/8/09)(SFC, 4/9/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 9, French lawmakers
rejected a tough new Internet piracy bill that would cut off illegal
downloaders, in a surprise setback for President Nicolas Sarkozy's
government.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 10, In France Ekaitz
Sirvent Auzmendi (29), suspected of being a master forger for ETA, was
captured by French and Spanish police as he got off a bullet train that
had arrived from Bordeaux at the French capital's Montparnasse station.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 10, France's navy freed a
sailboat seized off Somalia last week by pirates, but one of the
hostages was killed. Pirates had seized the sailboat carrying Florent
Lemacon, his wife, 3-year-old son and two friends off the Somali coast
a week ago. Two pirates were killed, and Lemacon died in an exchange of
fire as he tried to duck down the hatch.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 13, In France a
65-year-old man opened fire on three people apparently at random,
killing two. The man, who had holed up in a house in the town of
Douchy-les-Mines surrendered after the shootings.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, France's government
launched a campaign against forced marriages and genital mutilation,
seeking to protect women from practices that quietly thrive in
immigrant communities the nation is struggling to integrate.
(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 14, French author Maurice
Druon (b.1918), a fighter for France's World War II Resistance movement
and writer of one of its anthems, died. After the conflict he wrote
historical novels including the "Rois Maudits" (Accursed Kings) series.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, A blockade by French
fishermen angry at EU quotas cut ferry links with Britain for a second
day as a union official threatened to block the Channel Tunnel in
support of the movement.
(AFP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 15, French forces
detained 11 pirates during an assault on a pirate "mother ship" and
thwarted a pirate attack on a Liberian-registered vessel.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 Apr 16, French fishermen
allowed traffic to resume to three English Channel ports after
receiving a government promise of euro4 million ($5.27 million) in aid,
but they vowed to keep up their fight against European fishing quotas.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 18, French and Spanish
security forces thwarted a new ETA attack with the arrest of Jurdan
Martitegi, the military chief of the Basque separatist group, and seven
other suspected members.
(AFP, 4/19/09)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.56)
2009 Apr 20, In southeast France
workers at a French subsidiary of the American company Molex detained
two bosses to protest plans to close the plant.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 21, French police
detained around 200 undocumented migrants in a major operation in the
Channel port of Calais.
(AP, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 22, In northern
France an auto parts factory was closed after employees angry
over job losses ransacked offices and prompted new concern about
increasingly violent French worker protests.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 28, In California a
charter bus carrying French tourists overturned near Soledad killing at
least 5 people.
(SFC, 4/29/09, p.B1)
2009 May 1, May Day protesters
clashed with riot police in Germany, Turkey and Greece, while thousands
angry at the government's responses to the global financial crisis took
to the streets in France. Riot police battled 700 stone-throwing
left-wing militants in Berlin for more than five hours in May Day
clashes that stretched into early pre-dawn hours.
(Reuters, 5/1/09)(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 3, A French naval vessel
intercepted 11 suspected pirates traveling off the Somali coast in two
assault vessels and a so-called "mothership" loaded with Kalashnikovs
and rocket launchers.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 12, Italian
anti-terrorism investigators said two French citizens behind bars since
last year on suspicion of smuggling migrants were al-Qaida propaganda
point men in Europe and were heard talking in jail about a possible
attack on a Paris airport. Bassam Ayachi (62) and Raphael Frederic
Gendron (33) were served warrants in jail accusing them of criminal
association for international terrorism. The men have been held in Bari
since November when they were arrested on suspicion of smuggling two
Syrians and three Palestinians into Italy.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 14, A French rocket
carrying the largest space telescope ever was launched into space on a
mission that European scientists hope will help unravel the mystery of
the universe's creation. The Ariane-5 rocket was loaded with the
Herschel space telescope and the Planck spacecraft, carrying a payload
of 5.3 tons (4.81 metric tons) when it launched from the city of Kourou
near the jungles of French Guiana.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 15, Lakhdar Boumediene
(43), a Guantanamo Bay prisoner who was at the center of a Supreme
Court battle over inmates' rights, arrived in France, which agreed to
take in the Algerian in a gesture to the Obama administration.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 20, British actress Lucy
Gordon (28), an up-and-coming talent who played a role in Spider-Man 3
and will soon appear as Jane Birkin in a Serge Gainsbourg biopic,
killed herself in Paris.
(AFP, 5/21/09)
2009 May 24, At the Cannes Film
Festival the film “The White Ribbon” by Austrian director Michael
Haneke won the top prize. Christolph Waltz won the best actor prize for
his role in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglorious Bastards.” Charlotte
Gainsbourg won the best actress prize for her role in Lars von Trier’s
“antichrist.”
(SFC, 5/25/09, p.E4)
2009 May 25, In Paris the Church
of Scientology and six of its French leaders went on trial on charges
of organized fraud that could lead to an outright ban on the
organization in France.
(AFP, 5/25/09)
2009 May 26, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy opened his nation's first military base in the Gulf
outside Abu Dhabi, boosting the naval presence along strategic oil
routes and in pirate-infested waters off the Somali coast.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 26, In Paris the body of
Polish-born French woman Kinga Legg (36) was found at the exclusive
Hotel Bristol. Police sought her English boyfriend Ian Griffin (39).
(AFP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 30, In Paris a man,
wearing a suit and a hat, walked into the Chopard jewelry boutique on
the chic Place Vendome. He threatened employees with a gun and, minutes
later, walked calmly out of the store with loot worth up to euro6.5
million. A suspect (52) was detained in the Belgian port city of
Antwerp in mid-July at the request of French justice authorities. He
was extradited to France several weeks later and put in custody here.
(AP, 8/10/09)
2009 May 31, A missing Air France
Airbus A330 jet, Flight 447, carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to
Paris ran into lightning and strong thunderstorms over the Atlantic
Ocean. Brazil soon began a search mission off its northeastern coast.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May, In France fashion house
of Christian Lacroix filed for bankruptcy. It had been founded inside
LVMH, a luxury goods group in 1987 and lost money every year since then.
(Econ, 7/11/09, p.66)
2009 Jun 2, An airplane seat, a
life jacket, metallic debris and signs of fuel were found in the middle
of the Atlantic Ocean by Brazilian military pilots searching for a
missing Air France airliner Flight 447.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 6, President Barack Obama
at Omaha Beach, France, paid tribute to the Allies' 1944 D-Day
landings, an invasion that turned the tide of World War II and cemented
the trans-Atlantic alliance.
(AP, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 6, Jean Dausset (1916),
French immunologist, died. The 1980 Nobel prize-winner was a pioneer
behind organ transplants and the mapping of the human genome. Dausset's
discovery in 1958 of the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) tissue system
allowed doctors to verify compatibility between donor and receiver for
an organ transplant.
(AP, 6/24/09)
2009 Jun 6, Brazilian search crews
retrieved the first 2 bodies in the Atlantic from the May 31 crash
of Air France Flight 447. Investigators said faulty speed
readings had been found on the same type of jets.
(Reuters, 6/6/09)
2009 Jun 7, Brazilian and French
ships recovered 14 more bodies from ocean near Air France crash,
bringing the total to 16.
(AP, 6/7/09)(SFC, 6/8/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 8, Brazilian and French
ships recovered 8 more bodies from Air France Flight 447, bringing the
total recovered to 24. The tail section of the plane was also
recovered. The plane disappeared during a flight from Rio de Janeiro to
Paris on May 31 amid strong thunderstorms.
(AP, 6/9/09)(SFC, 6/9/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 9, In France Veronique
Courjault (41), went on trial after admitting killing two baby boys
born secretly in Seoul in 2002 and 2003, and a third child born in
France in 1999. On June 18 she was convicted and sentenced to 8 years
in prison.
(AFP, 6/9/09)(SFC, 6/19/09, p.A2)
2009 Jun 10, The French nuclear
submarine Emeraude reached the crash zone of Air France Flight 447
where 41 of 228 bodies have been recovered.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 12, A Brazilian ship
recovered three more bodies from the Atlantic bringing the total to 44.
Searchers said weather and currents complicated their job and warned it
is unlikely that all the dead from Air France Flight 447 will be found.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 13, Brazil reported that
a French ship had found six more bodies from Air France Flight 447,
which would bring the total to 50. It went down May 31 with 228 on
board.
(AP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 19, Isamu Akasaki (80), a
professor at Nagoya University in central Japan, was among the winners
of this year's Kyoto Prizes. He will receive the advanced technology
award for his pioneering work in the development of blue light-emitting
diodes, or LEDs. Peter (72) and Rosemary Grant (72), a husband-and-wife
team of biologists from Princeton University, won for their decades of
research on evolution in the Galapagos Islands and will share an award
of $515,000. This year's award in arts and philosophy went to French
composer and conductor Pierre Boulez (84).
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 22, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy declared that the Islamic burqa is not welcome in
France, branding the face-covering, body-length gown as a symbol of
subservience that suppresses women's identities.
(AP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 23, The French parliament
created a commission to study the wearing of body-covering burqas and
niqabs in France, a day after President Nicolas Sarkozy said the
Islamic garment turns women into prisoners.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 23, Frederic Mitterrand
(b.1947) was appointed to the French government as the Minister of
Culture and Communications.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Mitterrand)
2009 Jun 26, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy said that Martinique is free to hold a referendum on
greater political autonomy but made clear the island would always
belong to France.
(AP, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 30, A Yemenia Airbus 310
jet with 153 people on board crashed into the Indian Ocean as it tried
to land during strong winds on the island nation of Comoros. The
passengers were on the last leg of a journey from Paris and Marseilles
to Comoros with a stop in Yemen to change planes. Bahia Bakari (14),
the only person to survive, was plucked from the sea after clinging to
wreckage for 13 hours. Investigators on Aug 28 retrieved the slightly
damaged flight data recorder and 10 more bodies from the Yemenia
Airways flight. The voice recorder was recovered on Aug 29.
(AP, 6/30/09)(SFC, 7/2/09, p.A3)(AP, 8/29/09)
2009 Jun 30, Shi Pei Pu (b.1938),
a Chinese operatic soprano, died in Paris. His affair with French lover
Bernard Boursicot (b.1945), inspired the 1988 play and 1993 film “M.
Butterfly.” Both were arrested for espionage in 1983 and convicted in
1986. Shi was pardoned in 1987.
(SFC, 7/4/09, p.B3)
2009 Jul 4, A joint French-Spanish
operation captured 3 suspected members of ETA in the French city of Pau.
(SFC, 7/6/09, p.A2)
2009 Jul 8, In France some 60
youths rioted outside Saint-Etienne after hearing that man had tried to
hang himself in jail. Mohamed Benmouna (21) died soon after at a
hospital.
(SFC, 7/9/09, p.A2)
2009 Jul 14, In Somalia two French
officials working as security advisers to the Somali government were
kidnapped in Mogadishu. Agent Marc Aubriere managed to escape on August
26.
(Reuters, 7/14/09)(AP, 8/26/09)(SFC, 8/27/09, p.A2)
2009 Jul 16, In Marseilles,
France, a worker was killed immediately when the roof of a stage being
built for a Madonna concert fell apart on top of several workers.
Madonna canceled her scheduled July 19 performance. A 2nd worker
died the next day.
(AP, 7/17/09)
2009 Jul 21, French factory
workers angry over layoffs and cost cuts locked up their bosses at a
Michelin tire plant and a US-owned cigarette-paper mill. The managers
were released the next morning after regional officials offered to
mediate.
(AP, 7/22/09)
2009 Jul 24, In Europe deadly
summer wild fires spread across Spain, France, Italy and Greece with
holidaymakers rescued from beaches and thousands of firefighters
brought into the battle.
(AFP, 7/24/09)
2009 Jul 27, A Congo government
spokesman said The Democratic Republic of Congo has suspended
transmission of French broadcaster Radio France International (RFI).
(Reuters, 7/27/09)
2009 Aug 1, In Afghanistan 3 US
troops were killed by improvised explosives in Kandahar province and a
French soldier was killed in an insurgent attack in Kapisa province.
Two more ISAF troops were killed when two bomb blasts struck their
patrol in the south. A dozen rebels were killed in a gunfight with
police in the southwestern province of Nimroz. 4 Afghan soldiers were
killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb planted by
"terrorists" in southern Helmand province. 3 policemen including a
senior officer were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in
the northern province of Baghlan.
(AFP, 8/1/09)(AFP, 8/2/09)
2009 Aug 8, In Mauritania a
suicide bomber killed himself outside the French Embassy, wounding two
embassy guards and a woman in the street. An African branch of Al-Qaida
later said the attack was a response to the aggression of "crusaders"
including former colonial ruler France, and to Mauritanian leaders
against Islam and Muslims.
(AP, 8/8/09)(AP, 8/18/09)
2009 Aug 9, The French advertising
group Publicis said it would buy the digital advertising agency
Razorfish from Microsoft for 530 million dollars (380 million euros).
(AFP, 8/9/09)
2009 Aug 11, In France restive
youths in a Paris suburb torched a tourist bus and nearly a half-dozen
cars and hurled objects at police, in a night of fullblown unrest
prompted by the death of a teen fleeing police on Aug 9. Some witnesses
claimed a police car hit the young motorcyclist after he tried to flee
a document check outside the project.
(AP, 8/11/09)
2009 Aug 12, A French teenager
(16) shot and killed his parents and twin brothers, apparently while
they were asleep in their home on the island of Corsica.
(AFP, 8/13/09)
2009 Aug 12, In France a
35-year-old convert to Islam, identified only as Carole, complained of
religious discrimination after trying to go swimming in a "burquini," a
full-body swimsuit, in the town of Emerainville, southeast of Paris.
Officials insisted they banned the woman's use of the Islam-friendly
suit at a local pool because of France's pool hygiene standards.
(AP, 8/13/09)
2009 Aug 19, French police with
Spanish help detained three suspected members of Basque separatist
group ETA in a French Alps ski resort and seized material for making
explosives, after a series of bombings claimed by the group on the
Spanish island of Mallorca.
(AP, 8/19/09)
2009 Aug 20, A French
government-sponsored report was released saying that decomposing algae
covering some beaches in Brittany represent a serious health risk and
gases that can kill within minutes were detected on a beach where a
horse died last month.
(AP, 8/20/09)
2009 Sep 1, Malaysian police
arrested Alain Robert (47), a French climber nicknamed "Spiderman,"
after he scaled the iconic 88-story Petronas Twin Towers.
(AP, 9/1/09)
2009 Sep 8, Deutsche Telekom AG
and France Telecom SA said they intend to combine their British mobile
phone units, shaking up the country's intensely competitive market and
forming the country's biggest mobile operator. Analysts said Nokia
Siemens Networks, the key equipment vendor to British operations of
Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom, had most to lose in the merger.
(AP, 9/8/09)(Reuters, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 10, A new book, whose
title translates as "Hold-Ups, Swindles and Treasons," by French
journalists Antonin Andre and Karim Rissouli, hit French stores
alleging that a vote last year to elect the leader of France's
Socialist Party was rigged, sparking further disarray among the
once-mighty champions of the left.
(AP, 9/10/09)
2009 Sep 12, Willy Ronis (99), the
last of the great French photographers, died. Lovers, nudes and scenes
from Paris streets were the mainstay of Ronis' photographs in an
award-winning career that began in the 1930s.
(AP, 9/12/09)
2009 Sep 14, France Telecom SA
summoned all 20,000 of its managers to a conference call in an effort
to respond to a string of 23 employee suicides that unions blame partly
on layoffs and restructuring at the telecommunications giant.
(AP, 9/14/09)
2009 Sep 14, In Somalia foreign
troops firing from helicopters killed at least two people in a car and
then took two others captive in a town controlled by Islamic
insurgents. One witness said the helicopters took off from a warship
flying a French flag, but that could not be confirmed.
(AP, 9/14/09)
2009 Sep 15, The Frankfurt auto
show opened. The French company Renault unveiled a lineup that includes
a purely electric sedan, without a backup internal combustion engine.
Renault says the vehicle will be in showrooms by 2011.
(www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/automobiles/14electric.html)(Econ,
10/17/09, p.74)
2009 Sep 17, In Brussels French
Pres. Sarkozy said EU leaders have agreed to impose a cap on bankers’
pay.
(SFC, 9/18/09, p.A2)
2009 Sep 18, Angry French farmers
dumped millions of liters of fresh milk next to next the famed Mont
Saint-Michel, one of France's most famous tourist sites, to denounce
the slumping cost of milk and an EU plan to end production quotas,
which could further drive prices down.
(AP, 9/18/09)
2009 Sep 22, French police cleared
out, then bulldozed, a squalid forest camp near the northern city of
Calais, detaining hundreds of illegal immigrants who had hoped to slip
across the English Channel into Britain.
(AP, 9/22/09)
2009 Sep 22, A sharply divided EU
failed to protect the threatened bluefin tuna, as the bloc's
Mediterranean nations refused to back even a temporary a ban on
catching the fish prized by sushi aficionados. Greece, Cyprus, Malta,
Spain, France and Italy, with strong fishermen's lobbies at home,
insisted on continuing the hunt despite the precarious state of the
species. Conservation groups had earlier criticized the EU for not
pushing to list the bluefin tuna under the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species.
(AP, 9/22/09)
2009 Sep 24, Two French military
fighter Rafale jets crashed into the Mediterranean Sea during a
training mission and one pilot was missing.
(AP, 9/24/09)
2009 Oct 2, In France Armenia's
President Serge Sarkisian started his tour of Armenian communities
worldwide amid violent protests from members of a diaspora angry over
plans to establish ties with Turkey.
(AP, 10/2/09)
2009 Oct 6, In Kazakhstan French
President Nicolas Sarkozy scored a diplomatic coup during a visit,
overseeing an agreement to allow military hardware for French forces
fighting in Afghanistan to pass through Kazakh territory and clinching
a raft of lucrative energy deals.
(AP, 10/6/09)
2009 Oct 7, Egypt's antiquities
department severed its ties with France's Louvre museum because it has
refused to return what are described as stolen artifacts,
(AP, 10/7/09)
2009 Oct 7, Somali pirates in two
skiffs fired on a French navy vessel after apparently mistaking it for
a commercial boat. The French ship gave chase and captured five
suspected pirates.
(AP, 10/7/09)
2009 Oct 8, French police arrested
a nuclear physicist in Vienne on suspicion that he had links to
terrorist organizations in Algeria. The man had been working on
analysis projects with the LHCb experiment at CERN since 2003.
(AP, 10/9/09)
2009 Oct 8, French utility group
GDF Suez said it had signed a contract worth 3.0 billion dollars (2.0
billion euros) to supply electricity to subsidiaries of the Chilean
electricity company EMEL.
(AP, 10/8/09)
2009 Oct 9, France's culture
minister agreed to return painted wall fragments to Egypt after a row
over their ownership prompted the country to cut ties with the Louvre
Museum.
(AP, 10/9/09)
2009 Oct 10, The French military
fired on pirates in the Indian Ocean to protect two tuna fishing
vessels.
(Reuters, 10/10/09)
2009 Oct 11, Pope Benedict XVI
canonized five new saints, including Father Damien, a 19th-century
priest who worked with leprosy patients on a Hawaiian island; Zygmunt
Szcezesny Felinski, a 19th-century Polish bishop who defended the
Catholic faith during the years of the Russian annexation; Spaniards
Francisco Coll y Guitart, who founded an order of Dominicans in the
19th century, and Rafael Arniaz Baron, who renounced an affluent
lifestyle at age 22 to live a humble life in a strict monastery and
dedicate himself to prayer; and Jeanne Jugan (d.1879), a French nun,
who helped found the Little Sisters of the Poor.
(AP, 10/11/09)
2009 Oct 13, French soldiers in
the Indian Ocean opened fire on pirates, warding off an attack on two
French tuna fishing vessels off the Seychelles Islands.
(AP, 10/13/09)
2009 Oct 15, A French court turned
down a bid by Fabienne Justel, a 39-year-old widow, to retrieve her
late husband's frozen sperm in order to have his child by insemination
in another country. A French law prohibited post-mortem insemination.
(AFP, 10/15/09)
2009 Oct 15, Italy and NATO denied
a newspaper report that the Italian intelligence secretly paid the
Taliban thousands of dollars to maintain peace in an area in
Afghanistan that was under Italian control. The Times of London had
just reported that Italy had paid "tens of thousands of dollars" to
Taliban commanders and warlords in the Surobi district. It accused Rome
of failing to inform its allies about the payments and of misleading
the French, who took over the Surobi district in mid-2008, into
thinking the area was quiet and safe. An ambush of the French in a
mountain pass on Aug. 18, 2008, was the biggest single combat loss for
international forces in Afghanistan in more than three years.
(AP, 10/15/09)
2009 Oct 16, French farmers
struggling with slumping grain prices blanketed the Champs-Elysees with
bales of hay and set them ablaze, and blocked highways around the
country as they demanded government help.
(AP, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 19, French police
apprehended suspected ETA militant Aitor Elizaran (30) in a car park at
the wheel of a stolen car in the Brittany seaside town of Carnac, along
with a woman suspect, Oihana Sanvicente (32). They were soon charged
with conspiracy to collaborate with a terrorist organization.
(AFP, 10/24/09)
2009 Oct 22, In Sudan gunmen
kidnapped Gauthier Lefevre (35), a French staff member working for the
International Committee of the Red Cross, in the western Darfur region.
The kidnappers soon demanded a three-million-euro ransom.
(AP, 10/22/09)(AFP, 10/27/09)
2009 Oct 23, In France Jean
Sarkozy (23), President Nicolas Sarkozy's son, was elected to the board
of the organization that runs France's most important business district
after a dramatic withdrawal of his bid for the top spot amid fierce
accusations of favoritism. He had been the leading candidate to head
EPAD, a quasi-governmental organization overseeing real estate and the
administration of La Defense, the neighborhood of skyscrapers west of
Paris that is home to top companies and the workplace of 150,000 people.
(AP, 10/23/09)
2009 Oct 27, A Paris court
convicted the French branch of the Church of Scientology of fraud and
fined it more than euro600,000 ($900,000), but stopped short of banning
the group as prosecutors had demanded.
(AP, 10/27/09)(SFC, 10/28/09, p.A4)
2009 Oct 28, Somali pirates
exchanged fire with a French fishing vessel. They sped away, but were
soon stopped by a Spanish naval helicopter. 7 pirates were detained on
the German naval vessel, FGS Karlsruhe.
(AP, 10/28/09)
2009 Oct 31, A Russian news agency
reported that Moscow plans to buy a French amphibious assault ship, the
first such purchase from a NATO country, as the Kremlin seeks to
reaffirm Russia's global reach.
(AP, 10/31/09)
2009 Nov 2, French-born writer
Marie Ndiaye (b.1967) won France's top literary prize for "Three Strong
Women," her moving tale of the struggles of women in Europe and Africa.
She was born in Pithiviers, to a French mother and a Senegalese father
and currently lived in Berlin.
(AP, 11/2/09)
2009 Nov 3, Claude Levi-Strauss
(b.1908), Brussels-born French intellectual, died. He was widely
considered the father of modern anthropology for work that included
theories about commonalities between tribal and industrial societies.
His books included literary and anthropological classics such as
"Tristes Tropiques" (1955), "The Savage Mind" (1963) and "The Raw and
the Cooked" (1964).
(AP, 11/3/09)(Econ, 11/14/09, p.106)
2009 Nov 5, In France security
workers picked up euro11.6 million ($17.2 million) in cash at the
Banque de France branch in Lyon. They then stopped at another bank and
while two security workers were inside that bank, the driver made off
with the cash. Loomis identified the alleged thief as Tony Musulin
(39). As no violence was involved in the theft, Musulin risks only
three years in jail if caught and charged. On Nov 9 Lyon Prosecutor
Xavier Richaud said euro9.5 million ($14.25 million) in cash was found
in a storage space near a railway track where police earlier found the
security truck used in the theft. On Nov 16 Musulin handed himself in
to police in Monaco.
(AP, 11/7/09)(SFC, 11/7/09, p.A2)(AP, 11/9/09)(AFP,
11/16/09)
2009 Nov 11, The leaders of France
and Germany appeared together at a ceremony in Paris, for the first
time since World War I, to commemorate the end of the conflict, saying
it is now time to celebrate their countries' reconciliation and
friendship.
(AP, 11/11/09)
2009 Nov 13, The French government
said its navy has seized 3 boats of Somalia’s coast and detained 12
suspected pirates, while seizing an arsenal including assault rifles
and rocket launchers.
(SFC, 11/14/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 16, French tire maker
Michelin announced plans to invest nearly 900 million dollars to build
a tire plant to supply India's fast-growing vehicle market.
(AFP, 11/16/09)
2009 Nov 19, In France South
Korean model Daul Kim (20), a fashion week regular in New York, Milan
and Paris, was been found hanged in her Paris apartment.
(AP, 11/20/09)
2009 Nov 20, In France a man with
an automatic rifle opened fire on a car near a Paris train station,
killing one man and wounding two others.
(AP, 11/20/09)
2009 Nov 26, Georgia’s foreign
minister said his country is very worried about the possible sale of
French warships to Russia and intends to press the issue of security
guarantees in France.
(AP, 11/26/09)
2009 Nov 28, French Transport
Minister Dominique Bussereau said Russia has given the green light for
Air France's A380 superjumbo to overfly Siberia, opening the way for a
projected Paris-Tokyo service. The accord was approved by PM Vladimir
Putin at the end of a two-day visit to France which saw a number of
business deals concluded. Putin's trip also secured a deal for French
investment in a key pipeline project and the struggling Avtovaz car
maker, as well as a promise that France will consider selling Moscow a
huge amphibious assault ship.
(AFP, 11/28/09)
2009 Nov 29, France and Rwanda
agreed to restore diplomatic ties three years after they were cut off
amid tensions over a French judicial investigation.
(AP, 11/29/09)
2009 France’s 194 prisons, with a
capacity of 51,000, housed some 63,000 prisoners. It was estimated that
20% of the inmates were mentally il. Over half of the inmates were
Muslim.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.57)
2015 The construction of a $10-20
billion new airport was planned to begin near Chartres, southwest of
Paris.
(WSJ, 6/6/96, p.A11)
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Subject = France
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