Police have arrested two brothers suspected of planning a terrorist attack in France.

The French government today moved to cut short Senate debate on its controversial bid to raise the retirement age as unions vowed to keep up the campaign which has hit petrol supplies and brought thousands onto the streets.

WORKERS opposed to a higher retirement age blocked roads to airports around France yesterday, leaving passengers in Paris dragging suitcases on foot along an emergency breakdown lane.

Police broke through barricades around French fuel depots today as the government took a tough line with strikers threatening to bring the country to a halt.

French authorities forced strike-shuttered fuel depots to reopen today to ensure petrol supplies keep flowing, and the interior minister threatened to send in paramilitary police to stop rioting on the fringes of protests against raising the retirement age to 62.

INTERIOR Minister Brice Hortefeux has become the latest senior French official caught out by an embarrassing slip of the tongue, after he spoke on television of his “database of genital prints”.

Saudi intelligence services have warned of a new al-Qaida terror threat against Europe, particularly in France, the French government said.

Saudi intelligence services have warned of a new terror threat from al Qaida in Europe, “notably France,” Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said today.

FRANCE has stepped up its vigilance against terror threats, a top official announced yesterday amid reports of various new threats, including one against the Paris transport network.

France today promised to continue dismantling illegal gypsy encampments and sending their inhabitants back to Eastern Europe despite widespread international criticism.

FRANCE expelled scores of Roma, packing them on planes and flying them back to Romania yesterday at the start of a crackdown ordered by President Nicolas Sarkozy which has drawn strong criticism.

At least 19 people were killed in flash floods that hit the back hills of the French Riviera today and turned streets into rivers of surging muddy water, officials said.

A MUSLIM husband at the centre of a row in France over multiple marriages defended himself yesterday by claiming that keeping mistresses was the French way of life.

A Muslim husband at the centre of a row in France over multiple marriages defended himself today by claiming that keeping mistresses was the French way of life.

The death toll from the violent storm that lashed western France rose to 47 today.

France’s new immigration minister today ordered stepped-up arrests and expulsions of illegal immigrants and, in a clear toughening of the French approach to the problem, set quotas for police and customs officers to fulfil by the end of the year.

FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a broad-based cabinet yesterday, naming popular leftist Bernard Kouchner as foreign minister in a slimline government that radically reshaped the finance ministry.

President Nicolas Sarkozy named a radically-revamped Cabinet today, with humanitarian crusader Bernard Kouchner as France's new foreign minister.