The Government is in no rush to get a deal on restructuring the €31bn promissory notes, preferring to leave it until later in the year, Finance Minister Michael Noonan said.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan says progress has been made on securing French support for a better deal on Ireland's banking debt.

European governments are ready to agree to a new bailout package for Greece, France’s finance minister said today ahead of a meeting with his counterparts in Brussels.

French Finance Minister Francois Baroin has said EU ministers have everything they need to approve a second financial rescue package for Greece.

The majority of Germans feel the eurozone would be better off if debt-crippled Greece left it, a poll published in prominent newspaper Bild am Sonntag showed yesterday.

Germany and France pressed yesterday for a rapid deal between Greece and its private creditors that would return its soaring debt to sustainable levels, and said they remained committed to a new bailout that is needed by March to avert a disastrous default.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy has called for courage, calm and unity to overcome the financial crisis, as well as promising new reforms – without mentioning the loss of France’s prized AAA credit rating.

The eurozone crisis was facing fresh turmoil today after the credit worthiness of France and eight other eurozone nations were downgraded by a leading ratings agency.

French finance minister Francois Baroin went on television to admit the downgrade was ``bad news'' but insisted it was not ``a catastrophe''.

CREDIT rating agency Standard & Poor’s could change its outlook on France’s AAA rating to negative within days, a French newspaper reported, adding to fears France may lose its position among the top rank of sovereign borrowers.

The 17 finance ministers of the eurozone converged on EU headquarters today in a desperate bid to save the currency – and to protect the global economy from a debt-induced financial collapse.

GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected French calls to deploy the European Central Bank as a crisis backstop, defying global leaders and investors calling for more urgent action to halt the turmoil.

France has lashed out at ratings agency Standard & Poor’s for accidentally sending out a note to some clients saying it was downgrading its view on Europe’s second-biggest economy.

THE head of Europe’s bailout fund sought financial support from China yesterday to help resolve the bloc’s debt crisis, saying that while no quick deal was in sight, he was still confident Beijing would keep buying bonds issued by the fund.

The eurozone bailout fund will see its firepower increased to more than €1 trillion to enable it to contain the Eurozone debt turmoil, German government sources said today.

DOUBT cast on France’s triple-A credit rating by Moody’s raised uncertainty over Europe’s hopes of drawing a line under its sovereign debt crisis, five days before a crucial EU summit.

THE world’s leading economies pressed Europe on Saturday to act decisively within eight days to resolve the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis.

HOURS after German Chancellor Angela Merkel secured the support of the country’s parliament for stronger eurozone bailout funding the scale of the far bigger challenges ahead took some of the gloss from her relatively minor but essential victory.

France proudly presented next year’s budget today as the first to cut spending since the Second World War, as it tries to convince nervous investors that it will get its debts under control.

EUROPE should press ahead with a tax on financial transactions even without international consensus, the German and French finance ministers said in a letter sent to the European Commission yesterday.

PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy ordered his finance and budget ministers tofind new ways to prune the public deficit, as markets fretted over France’s strained finances and banks following a US debt downgrade.

PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy ordered his finance and budget ministers tofind new ways to prune the public deficit, as markets fretted over France’s strained finances and banks following a US debt downgrade.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged today to stick to the country's deficit-cutting goals amid rising concerns it could be the next triple A-rated economy to suffer a ratings downgrade.

France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy is interrupting his holiday to hold an emergency government meeting about the uncertainty on world financial markets.

Financial officials from the Group of Seven industrialised nations will discuss how to coordinate action between their countries’ central banks, a source said today.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s office said today he and German chancellor Angela Merkel had overcome differences and agreed on a common position before the emergency European debt crisis summit.

FRANCE promised Libyan rebels yesterday it would intensify air strikes on Muammar Gaddafi’s forces and send military liaison officers to help them as fighting raged in the besieged city of Misrata.

France’s government says it will send a small number of military liaison officers to Libya to work with opposition forces, but no ground troops.

Hackers launched cyber attacks on French government computers in search of information about the Group of 20 leading economies, the budget minister says.

The French government unveiled a package of spending cuts and tax rises in a bid to reduce the deficit sharply in the face of pressure from its European partners and international investors.

RECORDINGS of L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt’s conversations about political dealings and Swiss bank accounts may play a key role at a trial over whether the 87-year-old was manipulated into giving a friend about €1 billion in gifts.

France today announced the sale of 1,700 properties including chateaux, barracks and Parisian mansions, in part to cut the country’s heavy debt.

FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy prepared yesterday to shake up his government after a humiliating defeat by the left in regional elections pressured him to recast his reform programme.

President Nicolas Sarkozy dismissed his labour minister and reshuffled several other Cabinet posts today after a heavy defeat for his conservatives in France’s regional elections – a loss which exposed his inability to convince the public on his economic reforms.

Venezuelan investigators are picking through the shattered wreckage of a plane that crashed with 160 people on board, trying to determine what caused the engines to fail and sent the jet plunging from the sky in the country’s deadliest air disaster in history.

EARLY indications suggest the plane that crashed in Venezuela, killing all 160 people on board, may have experienced engine trouble.

Officials said there appear to be no survivors as a plane carrying residents of the French island of Martinique crashed in western Venezuela with at least 160 people on board today.