Socialist challenger Francois Hollande stamped his authority on the French presidential race yesterday, beating Nicolas Sarkozy in the first round of polling in which the far right also made major gains.

FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party has rejected as “grotesque” suggestions that Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the victim of a plot to ruin his presidential ambitions.

KENZA DRIDER’S posters for the French presidential race are ready to go, months before the official campaign begins.

A Frenchwoman who wears an Islamic face veil, despite a nationwide ban, wants to run for president in next year’s elections.

KARIMAN has a plan.

Conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party took a drubbing in local elections, seen as a test ahead of next year’s presidential vote, and the far-right National Front left its first footprint in France’s smallest administrative districts.

WORKERS tried to shut down France yesterday with strikes affecting transportation, schools and the postal service in a showdown with President Nicolas Sarkozy over his government’s attempt to raise the retirement age by two years.

POLICE yesterday probed allegations that President Nicolas Sarkozy’s election campaign received illegal donations from France’s richest woman throwing up the biggest crisis of his mandate.

POLITICIANS involved in yesterday’s closed-door hearing about France’s World Cup fiasco grumbled that Raymond Domenech refused to take any responsibility for his team’s misbehaviour and offered no explanations.

A woman driving while wearing an Islamic veil has been fined by French police for not having a clear field of vision.

FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday ordered legislation that would ban women from wearing Islamic veils that hide the face in the street and other public places.

French President Jacques Chirac today sought to calm violent student protests over the government’s youth jobs plan, urging new dialogue between ministers and labour leaders.

Talks begin today towards sealing a controversial merger deal between state-owned gas producer Gaz de France and utility company Suez that would create a world energy leader and block a hostile bid from Italy.

A second case of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has been confirmed in a wild duck in France, Agriculture Ministry officials said today.

President Jacques Chirac has asked media to avoid offending religious beliefs as a French newspaper today reprinted caricatures of the prophet Mohammed that have sparked violent protests in the Muslim world.

France’s prime minister cautioned aspiring European Union members yesterday that there is “no natural right, no historical right” for countries to join the bloc.

The unrest across France was the sign of a “profound malaise” that must be met with firmness, but also fairness, President Jacques Chirac said.

France’s Cabinet today approved a bill to extend the country’s state of emergency for three months to crack down on a wave of arson attacks and riots.

Youths set schools ablaze and torched cars as scattered arson attacks persisted across France early today, and the government said it would propose extending the country’s state of emergency by three months.

French President Jacques Chirac called for calm and a firm hand today in response to six nights of rioting in Paris’ troubled suburbs, warning of a “dangerous situation".

President Jacques Chirac is eager to leave the military hospital where he has been confined since last week, and news about his health is “very good,” the French prime minister said today.

French President Jacques Chirac took a moment during a weekend meeting with the leaders of Russia and Germany to make jokes about British food and mad cow disease, according to a French newspaper today.

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin presented a bill yesterday that would bypass parliament and urgently push through the government’s new jobs plan, a move that enraged the opposition.

Britain should play “its full role” in the financing of an enlarged European Union, President Jacques Chirac told his cabinet today, according to government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope.

Immigration, as well as unemployment, are at the top of the agenda of France’s new government, which has the task of pulling the nation out of a crisis of confidence.

Yet another poll has shown the “no” vote winning in France’s May 29 referendum on the EU constitution, and the government spokesman said today that rejecting the document had become fashionable.

The French government headed into crisis talks today in a bid to save the lives of two journalists held hostage by Islamic militants in Iraq – but refusing to bow to the kidnappers’ demands to rescind a ban on Muslim head scarves in French schools.

FRANCE vowed yesterday to press ahead with a controversial law banning Islamic headscarves in schools, despite demands by militants holding two French journalists hostage in Iraq that Paris revoke the legislation.

A FRENCH woman who alleged she was the victim of an anti-Semitic attack that shocked France yesterday told police she made up the incident, a judicial source said.

ELECTRICITY workers cut power to a former French prime minister yesterday as part of a national day of action against government plans to partly privatise public utilities.

Electricity workers cut power to a former French prime minister today as part of a national day of action against government plans to partly privatise public utilities.

French President Jacques Chirac today offered public support to the man once seen as his likely successor but now disgraced after being convicted for his role in a party financing scandal.

The French government has taken its first formal step toward legally banning the Muslim head scarf from public schools, adopting the measure in a Cabinet session.

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.

The French government has abandoned an idea of increasing wine tax to help fill its coffers.

THE FRENCH government yesterday warned that protracted public sector strikes would have dramatic consequences for the French economy as Paris commuters faced yet another day of scant subway and train services and airlines cancelled flights.

France today defended its opposition to the Iraq war, despite a warning by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that Paris would face consequences for its stance.

The French prime minister today told MPs that displays of anti-Americanism during protests against the war in Iraq were “unacceptable”.

As long as weapons inspectors are making progress in Iraq, France opposes a new UN Security Council resolution to pave the way for war, the French foreign minister has said.

In one outburst after another, French and German ministers lashed out at the US defence secretary today with one even evoking a four-letter word, in the clearest sign yet the Iraqi crisis has split the Atlantic alliance.