SPORADIC gunfire rang out after Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara called on all fighters to put down their arms now that the country’s long time strongman has been captured following a months-long deadly power struggle.

France declared Libya’s air space “under control” today after Nato agreed to take command of the no-fly zone.

SNOW and freezing temperatures continued to cause holiday travel chaos for road, rail and air passengers throughout much of Europe yesterday, raising fears that many will not get home in time for Christmas.

Thousands of people, many disabled or ailing, were evacuated today from the shrine at Lourdes in southern France after a bomb threat on the Catholic holy day of Assumption.

At least 15 people have been killed and 12 are missing after flash floods caused by powerful rainstorms in south-east France, regional officials said today.

A FRENCH lawyer for director Roman Polanski, imprisoned in Switzerland, says a new bail offer will be filed today and it will be a “very, very significant” cash amount.

An amateur club of gay footballers in Paris said today its members were victims of homophobia when a team of Muslim players refused to play them.

Police in Brazil are scouring airport video footage in a bid to identify passengers on the doomed Air France jet, following reports that two terror suspects were aboard when it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.

A FRENCH nuclear submarine has reached the crash zone of Air France Flight 447 to join the search for the plane’s black boxes, the key to determining what brought the Airbus down in the sea off Brazil with 228 people on board.

A commuter train struck and killed two football fans, including a 10-year-old boy, as they walked along the tracks after a match at Paris’ Stade de France, French officials said today.

The French Socialist Party said today that 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 supporters of her rival.

Fifteen hostages, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three US military contractors, have been freed, the Army said tonight.

Hundreds of rebels penetrated the capital of Chad today, clashing with government troops and moving on the presidential palace after a three-day advance across the Central African nation, officials and witnesses said. Looting, gunfire and explosions were reported.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was briefly admitted to hospital in secret in October for treatment of an abscess in his throat, the authors of a new book said today.

A Chadian court sentenced six French aid workers to eight years of forced labour after convicting them of trying to kidnap 103 African children.

Marcel Marceau, who revived the art of mime and brought poetry to silence, has died, French media reported today. He was 84.

French chef Anne-Sophie Pic has been awarded three stars in the Michelin Guide, the fourth woman ever to win the honour.

France's Defence Ministry strenuously denied a report today that French special forces in Afghanistan twice had al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in their sights but did not get the go-ahead to kill him.

France is to withdraw 200 members of its special forces in eastern Afghanistan within weeks, Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said today.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana today reacted cautiously to a proposal from a senior Iranian nuclear official that France enrich Iran’s uranium on Iranian soil to satisfy international demands for foreign supervision of the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.

After listening to six weeks of argument, tears and revelations, more of the jurors who spared Zacarias Moussaoui’s life were moved by the al-Qaida conspirator’s turbulent, deprived childhood than by claims that he was a delusional psychotic seeking martyrdom.

The French capital braced for more street protests today by students trying to force the government to withdraw a much-contested jobs law, with a warning from the interior minister that violence would be severely punished.

The H5N1 bird flu virus has killed 15 wild swans in south-eastern France where two wild ducks and a turkey farm were contaminated by the disease.

CAVE drawings thought to be older than those in the famed caves of Lascaux have been discovered in a grotto in western France, officials from the Charente region said yesterday.

Cave drawings thought to be older than those in the famed caves of Lascaux have been discovered in a grotto in western France, officials from the Charente region said today.

President Jacques Chirac has called for a collective fight against racism in response to France’s worst unrest in almost 40 years, saying discrimination poisons society.

Riots which have rocked France for the past 10 days reached central Paris for the first time today in an orgy of destruction and violence.

France was hit by a 10th night of rioting as the urban unrest reached Paris for the first time.

SMALL, mobile groups of youths hit Paris’s riot-shaken suburbs with waves of arson attacks, torching hundreds of cars, as unrest entered its second week yesterday and spread to other towns in France.

Small, mobile groups of youths torched hundreds more cars near Paris today, and the violence and arson attacks that have shaken the capital’s suburbs for a week spread to other French towns.

French President Jacques Chirac called for calm and a firm hand today in response to six nights of rioting in Paris’ troubled suburbs, warning of a “dangerous situation".

Unrest spread across troubled suburbs around Paris in a sixth night of violence as police clashed with angry youths and scores of vehicles were set on fire in at least nine towns.

Police were today preparing to evacuate Paris’ most dilapidated apartment buildings and squats, a response to three deadly fires that killed 48 African immigrants in recent months.

A blaze tore through a Paris apartment building housing African immigrant families, killing at least 17 people, at least half of them children, police said today.

PRESIDENT Jacques Chirac, shaken by the defeat of the European Union constitution, appointed Dominique de Villepin, a loyalist who jetted around the globe galvanising international opposition to the Iraq war, as prime minister to lead a new government yesterday.

President Jacques Chirac today appointed Dominique de Villepin, a loyalist who was France’s voice against the Iraq war, as prime minister, to head a new government in response to a humiliating referendum defeat.

President Jacques Chirac was making a last-ditch push today for a “yes” vote on the European Union’s first constitution, as speculation mounted that he will fire his prime minister if France votes down the landmark treaty.

Lebanon’s most prominent exile, former army commander Gen Michel Aoun, said today he suspects Syria was behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

A Paris newspaper editor said there had been positive movement in the effort to free two captive French journalists in Iraq, while a separate militant group said it had killed three Turkish captives.

A YOUNG mother who claimed to have been the victim of a train attack that stunned France was yesterday detained by police as doubts were raised about the truth of her story.

Tons of concrete collapsed from a ceiling over a waiting area in a passenger terminal at Paris’ largest airport today, killing at least six people and injuring three others, officials said.

THE French Navy deployed a robot submarine as France and Egypt stepped up a major search to find the fuselage and flight data recorders of the aircraft that crashed into the Red Sea, killing 148 people.

Bodies recovered from an Egyptian charter plane that crashed on Saturday killing all 148 people on board bore no traces of burns indicating there was no explosion aboard the aircraft, a top French Foreign Ministry official said today.

A crowded gangway leading from the dock to the Queen Mary 2 – the world’s largest passenger ship – collapsed today, killing 12 people and injuring 32 others, fire officials said.