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France’s economy minister on Monday launched a new label for French industry, tagged French Fab. A brand in the vein of “French Tech”, which is dedicated to growing French start-ups around the world. After French Tech (for start-ups), French Touch (for luxury goods), meet French Fab, the latest label in the “Made in France” brand stable. The new moniker introduced by Bruno Le Maire on ...

The Paris council voted on Monday to remove the sign “To the Happy Negro” (“Au Nègre Joyeux”) from the city’s former chocolate factory of the same name, after the Communists in the council branded the façade an “insulting and offensive presence”. The local authority decided to move the sign from the former factory in the French capital’s 5th arrondissement – near the Sorboe Universit...

Factories of the French car-making giant Renault which had been closed by the massive cyber attack that affected 150 countries over the weekend would resume operation Monday, a representative said.“Starting yesterday evening all our sites have been g...

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy faced a series of verbal attacks on Thursday night, as right-wing rivals sparred in the first of three presidential primary debates. On the debate stage, Sarkozy complained he has been unjustly hounded by legal investigations and found himself fending off attacks by former party chief Jean-François Coppé and others. "After 37 years in politics my criminal record is clean," Sarkozy said in reference to allegations of influence-peddling and suspected illegal funding of his failed 2012 re-election campaign."Do you think I would take part in this campaign if I had anything on my conscience?" Copé, who has also been investigated in coection to illegal fund...

The French press has all but written off France’s right-wing presidential primary as a duel between Alain Juppé and Nicolas Sarkozy. The five other candidates in the race hope to use Thursday night’s televised debate to change that impression. The "underdog" presidential hopefuls lashed out at the media and opinion polls this week, blaming them for painting the main opposition Les Républicains’ primary as a contest solely between Juppé, a former prime minister, and Sarkozy, France’s president from 2007 to 2012. “French people simply don’t know whom they will vote for yet,” Jérôme Chartier, the spokesman for former prime minister François Fillon, said at a press conference on Tuesday. MP Bru...

Thousands of left-wing voters in France are considering casting ballots in November’s primary to choose the conservative presidential nominee in an effort to derail a comeback by ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy. Three recent studies reveal that between 260,000 and 560,000 traditionally leftist voters may be plaing to “crash” the right-wing primary in November to sway the results in favour of former prime minister and current Bordeaux Mayor Alain Juppé. One of France’s most prominent political research centres, Cevipof, said this week that around 10 percent of primary participants could tu out to be left-wing sympathisers in disguise. Other polls put the figure as high as 16 percent. The prospec...

Centrist politician François Bayrou on Sunday said he would run as a candidate in France’s presidential election next year if Nicolas Sarkozy won the right-wing Les Républicains party nomination, in a new affront to the former president. Speaking to supporters gathered in the weste French town of Guidel, Bayrou accused Sarkozy of pitting French people against each other on the campaign trail and once again endorsed his main rival in the primary contest, Bordeaux Mayor Alain Juppé. “When politicians aim to stir up voters about issues that we thought belonged to the past – our origins, our ancestors, a false national tale, religions, the old ‘this is our country’ – it’s a sign of dangerous ti...

A new book by a former Elysée Palace advisor threatens to taish Nicolas Sarkozy’s image as the conservative politician seeks to reclaim France’s highest office in presidential elections next year. Patrick Buisson, Sarkozy’s controversial and now estranged former adviser, on Thursday is publishing a lengthy tome recalling the years in which the pair worked alongside each other at the Elysée. Excerpts from the memoir, published in French weekly L’Express on Tuesday, paint an unflattering portrait of a leader who appears obsessed with the far-right National Front (FN) party, and relishes insulting rivals and allies alike. Sarkozy progressively distanced himself from Buisson after his failed pre...

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls responded late on Thursday to former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s controversial comments earlier this week on the country’s Gaulish ancestry, stating that France was stronger because of its diversity. Valls touted France’s strengths as a multicultural society at the start of a 24-hour visit to Senegal. “Today’s France is a society that is mixed, multicultural, because of immigration, all kinds of immigration,” Valls said in front of a gathering of Senegal’s French community in the capital Dakar. “If we are French, it is not because of our origins, our religions or the colour of our skin,” he said. “Our country’s strength is its diversity, its mixing, its lov...

Hoping to be nominated by his centre-right party for next year’s presidential election, former French president Nicolas Sarkozy visited Calais this week, where he decried the current govement’s “absence of authority” over the migrant situation. But did Sarkozy, who is campaigning for the Les Républicains's (formerly UMP) party nomination in next year's election, do any better when he was in office, first as interior minister from 2002 to 2007, then as president from 2007 to 2012? The situation in Calais, where the squalid “Jungle” migrant camp has made inteational headlines, is a top subject for politicians of all stripes ahead of party primaries and next year's presidential election. Most o...

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was likened to Donald Trump this week after the latest in a string of provocative statements that have pushed his presidential campaign ever further to the right. The comparison with the Republican candidate for the White House, a notorious climate change sceptic, followed a speech on Wednesday in which Sarkozy appeared to question the extent of human involvement in global warming. In remarks delivered at a business conference and relayed by his office, Sarkozy, who is having another shot at the French presidency after his failed re-election bid in 2012, claimed climate change was receiving too much attention. “It’s an interesting topic, but climate ha...

Alstom will go ahead with plans to shut down manufacturing at its historic Belfort plant, its CEO said on Tuesday, setting up a confrontation with President François Hollande who vowed that "everything will be done" to stop its closure. The French engineering firm, which makes the country's famed TGV high-speed trains and is 20 percent controlled by the state, said last week it would stop making rolling stock at the factory in easte France, where its first steam locomotive was built back in 1880. The move caused a political furore over the weekend and Hollande’s govement demanded the company reconsider. The factory’s fate is set to become a hot-button issue as presidential hopefuls gear up f...

A Paris prosecutor has requested a criminal trial for former President Nicolas Sarkozy over suspected illegal overspending on his failed 2012 re-election campaign. The Paris prosecutor's office said Monday it has asked investigating judges to send Sarkozy and 13 others to court in the case. It's now up to the judges to decide whether Sarkozy must stand trial. Sarkozy aounced his bid for next year's presidential election last month and faces a primary in November against a dozen other conservative candidates. In February, the judges handed Sarkozy preliminary charges of alleged illegal campaign financing over an invoice system his party and a company named Bygmalion allegedly used to conceal ...