Nicolas Sarkozy appointed a new government in a marathon weekend reshuffle with faithful allies taking top posts clearly aimed at pleasing his conservative ranks before France’s 2012 presidential election.

Some airlines steered clear of France today, and police clashed with stone-throwing youths, as a new round of nationwide strikes and protests over a bill raising the retirement age to 62 kicked off.

The French Senate today overwhelmingly backed a bill banning the wearing of the full Islamic veil in public.

France’s justice minister went before parliament to defend a hotly-debated bill that would ban burqa-style Islamic veils in public, saying hiding your face from neighbours was against French values.

The debate over the wearing of the full veil by Islamic women in France is raging on with a French Justice saying a ban is necessary for coexistence between faiths and secular society.

A woman who gave birth aboard a medical helicopter was killed last night, along with her newborn baby and three others, when the aircraft crashed in bad weather on the Mediterranean island of Corsica.

Around 30,000 French and German police were today moving into position around three cities on both sides of the Rhine before a Nato summit involving President Barack Obama and 25 other leaders.

A protester was shot dead on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe today as weeks of strikes turned into street violence.

Part of a sports centre collapsed in high winds today in the northern Spanish city of Barcelona, killing four children and injuring 16 other people, officials and witnesses said.

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.

POLICE acting on a warning yesterday found a bundle of dynamite inside a Paris department store at the height of the Christmas season, as a group demanding that France withdraw from Afghanistan claimed responsibility.

A group demanding France withdraw its troops from Afghanistan said it planted dynamite found at a major Paris department store today.

The prime suspect for the 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue that killed four people and injured 20 others will appear in a Canadian court today.

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

A train slammed into a bus carrying schoolchildren at a railway crossing in the French Alps today, killing six children and injuring 30 people, regional officials said.

More than 350 police swept through a housing estate south of Paris today, arresting 19 people in an operation targeting suspects who attacked officers earlier this month.

Two men have been charged over death threats made to French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 10-year-old son.

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.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy insisted today that rioters who opened fire on police would be brought to justice and called the violence that has raged for three nights in a Paris suburb unacceptable.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was today preparing to fly back to the country for an emergency security meeting on the escalating Paris riots that have injured scores of police.

At least 77 police officers were injured when rampaging youths rioted in the suburbs of Paris overnight, a senior union official said today.

A police officer killed his two children and a superior today before turning his gun on himself at his suburban Paris station, an official said.

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

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.

French prime minister Dominique de Villepin today wrapped up a gruelling 17-hour-long grilling by judges investigating a suspected smear campaign against presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy.

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.

France is to withdraw 200 members of its special forces in eastern Afghanistan within weeks, Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said today.

A non-commissioned officer in the French spy agency was killed last week by a local militia at a border checkpoint in southern Iraq, the French Defence Ministry said today.

French President Jacques Chirac and leading ministers today laid the first brick at a new memorial honouring the late General Charles de Gaulle on the 36th anniversary of the iconic president’s death.

Attackers, some carrying handguns, torched buses in three overnight attacks in suburban Paris, as the nation faced the one-year anniversary of riots in France’s down-and-out, heavily immigrant neighbourhoods.

World governments are playing down a leaked French intelligence document that raises the possibility Osama bin Laden died of typhoid.

French President Jacques Chirac said today that information contained in a leaked intelligence document raising the possibility that Osama bin Laden may have died of typhoid in Pakistan last month is “in no way whatsoever confirmed.”

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.

British and American officials said their evacuations from Lebanon were wrapping up today, as ships continued to carry people to safety in Cyprus and Turkey.

President Jacques Chirac ordered a decommissioned aircraft carrier laden with toxic materials to return to France after the country’s top administrative court suspended its transfer to India for disposal.

Europe’s leading human rights watchdog said today it soon hopes to be able to monitor satellite footage of suspect sites in Romania and Poland as part of its investigation into alleged secret CIA prisons and flights in Europe.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said today that if current trends continue, his war-battered country hopes to eradicate opium poppy cultivation in five to ten years.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said today that if current trends continue, his war-battered country hopes to eradicate opium poppy cultivation in five to ten years.

French Mirage fighter jets opened fire yesterday as part of a support mission for US-led forces hunting remnants of the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the Defence Ministry said.

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.

France celebrated Bastille Day in Paris today with a colourful military parade under tight security to ward off any possible terrorist attacks.

About 5,000 police officers will be deployed in Paris tomorrow to ensure security for the national Bastille Day celebrations.