FRANCE is deploying hundreds of extra police at busy public places in its main cities after dynamite was planted in a Paris department store, Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said yesterday.

GARDAÍ could be seconded to some of Europe’s most popular holiday resorts to help Irish citizens in distress.

A Spanish civil guard was shot and killed today in a clash with members of Basque separatist group Eta in south-west France, the first death involving the group since it abandoned a cease-fire in June, police said.

Threat of a terror attack remains “real” for France, new interior minister Michele Alliot-Marie said today.

France is willing to send its troops to the violence-plagued southern and eastern Afghanistan, if reinforcements are requested in those regions, the French defence minister said today.

French President Jacques Chirac today appealed to the United States to speed up its response to Arab nations’ demands for changes to a UN resolution on ending the Middle East crisis.

European Union foreign ministers today considered a call for an immediate ceasefire for south Lebanon, working to overcome British reluctance and form a united front.

The French defence minister today warned of “worrying signs” in Ivory Coast, saying rebel militias there are rebuilding and re-arming in violation of cease-fire accords.

Two top French ministers publicly disagreed today on whether Paris had prior knowledge of secret British and American diplomacy that prompted Libya’s pledge to renounce weapons of mass destruction.

FRENCH anti-terrorism agents yesterday arrested six suspected Islamic militants in connection with a failed plot

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin tonight named France’s first centre-right Cabinet in five years, selecting a veteran diplomat to lead the Foreign Ministry and for the first time a woman as head of defence.