THE separation of church and state is shaping up as an early hot-button issue for France’s next presidential election as rival politicians begin jockeying for votes among the large Muslim minority.

Roman Catholics across the world, from blue-collar workers in Poland to monks in the Norwegian Arctic and parishioners in the Philippines, prayed for the Pope today amid fading hopes that he would recover.

France’s government today scrambled to map out its response to the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq, but showed no immediate signs of being ready to surrender to the hostage-takers’ reported demands.

Politicians and religious leaders in France expressed outrage following an anti-Semitic attack on a young mother in which a gang cut her hair and daubed swastikas on her belly.

An Muslim cleric who condoned wife beating and the stoning of women was deported from France today