Nine months before the presidential election, the candidates could well be the unpopular incumbent, Francois Hollande, his equally unpopular predecessor, Nicholas Sarkozy, and the far-right’s Marine Le Pen, says Noah Barkin

The race to be the next president of France could come down to voting for whoever will do the least damage, writes Noah Barkin. 

France’s interior minister is protesting accusations the government tried to cover up security failings the night of the Bastille Day attack in Nice that killed 84.

The EU should stop obsessing about who becomes head of the European Commission and focus more on promoting growth and engaging with the electorate, according to Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore.

France’s far-right National Front made gains in municipal elections, sparking calls for left and right-wing parties to stop its advance.

French President François Hollande named a government dominated by moderate left-wingers yesterday after Socialist Party boss Martine Aubry, overlooked for the post of prime minister, said she no longer wanted to be part of the new cabinet.

Unease is growing in French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre-right UMP party a week before a presidential election over his lurch to the right in pursuit of supporters of anti-immigration candidate Marine Le Pen.

The French Foreign Minister has said the International community may have to consider taking military action against Syria in an effort to end the crackdown by government forces.

Syrian troops shelled a rebel-held area of Homs and sent reinforcements to border areas today.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today called for international backing of an arms embargo and other stronger measures enforced by the UN against Syria if the country fails to abide by a ceasefire designed to end the bloodshed on its soil.

Syria’s government is failing to honour its pledges to implement a ceasefire plan aimed at ending more than a year of bloodshed, and violence there has escalated since a truce took effect a week ago, the UN chief has said.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton vowed today to pressure Russia over the Syria crisis, saying its refusal to support action by the United Nations Security Council was keeping President Bashar Assad in power.

President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged to achieve a budget surplus for the first time since 1974 and cut France’s swelling debt if re-elected on May 6, warning that his Socialist rival would lead the country towards the fate of Greece or Spain.

Syrian troops have launched a fierce assault on a Damascus suburb, days ahead of a deadline for a UN-brokered ceasefire.

Rebels who seized control of Mali’s remote north effectively partitioning the country in two have announced a ceasefire, saying they had reached their military goal.

The woman whose rabbi husband and two children were shot dead outside a Jewish school in France this week issued an emotional online plea today in the memory of her loved ones.

France’s prime minister has rejected suggestions that anti-terrorism authorities fell down on the job in monitoring a radical Islamist who gunned down seven people in a wave of killings that revolted the country.

Inspired by radical Islam and trained in Afghanistan, the gunman methodically killed French schoolchildren, a rabbi and paratroopers and faced down hundreds of police for 32 hours.

The man suspected of carrying out an al-Qaida-linked killing spree, Mohammed Merah, is dead after a 32-hour siege in Toulouse, a police union official says.

The bodies of three children and a rabbi gunned down at a Jewish school in France were flown to Israel today for burial, as French police raided a house in Toulouse and engaged in a gunbattle with a suspect in the killings.

French police stepped up the search for a gunman who filmed his carnage as he shot dead three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school, fearing the killer could strike again.

Syrian forces have killed more than 7,500 civilians since a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad began, a UN official said, aa Hilary Clinton suggested the Syrian leader may be a war criminal.

Two wounded Western journalists escaped from Syria today after being trapped for days in the besieged central city of Homs, activist groups said.

Syrian artillery pounded rebel-held areas of Homs yesterday as President Bashar al-Assad’s government announced that voters had overwhelmingly approved a new constitution in a referendum derided as a sham by his critics at home and abroad.

EU countries will agree this week to make Serbia a candidate to join the bloc after it resolved some long standing differences with its former province of Kosovo last week.

The European Union will freeze the assets of Syria’s central bank on Monday, the French foreign minister has said, in the latest effort to pressure Syria to halt its bloody crackdown on an uprising against president Bashar Assad.

Syrian troops attacked rebel strongholds in Deraa where the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad erupted nearly a year ago, and the UN chief said crimes against humanity had almost certainly been committed in Syria.

Two suicide car bombers struck Syrian security compounds in the northern city of Aleppo yesterday, killing 28 people officials said, while in besieged Homs, opposition areas endured another day of bombardment by President Bashar al-Assad’s troops.

Western and Arab countries responded with outrage yesterday after Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have backed an Arab plan urging Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to give up power.

Syrian forces unleashed a barrage of artillery on the battered city of Homs for hours before dawn today, killing more than 200 people in what appeared to be the bloodiest episode in the 11-month-old uprising, activists said.

Syrian government forces reasserted control of Damascus suburbs yesterday after beating back rebels, ahead of a push at the UN for a resolution calling for President Bashar al-Assad to give up powers.

British and French Foreign Ministers are today heading to New York to press for a United Nations resolution aimed at halting the violence.

The nuclear stakes over Iran were raised today when the EU banned buying the country’s oil and it retaliated by repeating a threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, a route for a fifth of the world’s crude.

A French TV cameraman has been killed in Syria during a government-authorised trip to the troubled city of Homs.

FRENCH president Nicolas Sarkozy demanded Syria’s Bashar al-Assad step down for overseeing “disgusting” massacres against his own people, as an Arab observer mission came in for more criticism.

SHAMED former French leader Jacques Chirac has been found guilty of corruption and given a suspended jail sentence, becoming France’s first ex-president to be convicted for his crimes.

Pressure to find a solution to the eurozone financial crisis increased today when a ratings agency threatened to downgrade its member countries and the emergency bailout fund.

The Arab League has given Syria 24 hours to agree to allow an observer mission into the country, or it could face sanctions.

Syrian troops stormed a central town and a north-western region in search of opponents of the government as pressure on Damascus intensified to end an eight-month crisis that has left thousands of people dead, activists said.

Syria has agreed in principle to allow dozens of Arab observers into the country to oversee a peace plan, a significant concession from a hardline regime that loathes any sort of outside interference.

Syria has agreed “in principle” to allow an observer mission into the country, a senior official in Damascus said today, as fresh anti-government protests erupted and France called for the UN to act against President Bashar Assad.