Latest Headline News From France

Chinese superstar Liu Xiang faces a huge test of his Olympic credentials when he lines up against reigning 110m hurdles world champion Jason Richardson at Shanghai's Diamond League meeting on Saturday.

The 2004 Olympic gold-medallist has hit form as he bids to erase his injury heartbreak of 2008 and will be backed by his home crowd as he faces America's Richardson as well as Aries Merritt, the newly crowned world indoor champion.

West Indies, after losing the toss, were 243 all out against England on the second day of the first Test at Lord's here on Friday.

Test debutant and West Indies No 11 Shannon Gabriel was out for a first ball duck Friday when he edged Stuart Broad straight to second slip Graeme Swann to leave Shivnarine Chanderpaul stranded on his overnight score of 87 not out.

Fast-medium bowler Broad's figures of seven for 72 were his best in Tests, surpassing his six for 46 against India at his Nottinghamshire home ground of Trent Bridge last year.

World stock prices fell on Friday and the euro hit yet another four-month low point, hit by a ratings downgrade for Greece and warnings for 16 Spanish banks, before a key G8 meeting.

In early morning deals, London's benchmark FTSE 100 index dropped 1.02 percent to 5,284.09 points, Frankfurt's DAX 30 lost 0.66 percent to 6,269.64 points and in Paris the CAC 40 shed 0.82 percent to 2,987.24.

French President François Hollande is to meet with US President Barack Obama for the first time on Friday before a G8 summit on Europe’s debt crisis. The two are expected to discuss issues ranging from austerity to troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

A row sparked by boxer Manny Pacquiao's comments on gay marriage has damaged the world champion, but has not so far affected any of his mega-buck endorsement deals, his spokeswoman said Friday.

Pacquiao told a US website this week he was opposed to same-sex unions, in an article that erroneously suggested the Philippine superstar had quoted a biblical passage calling for gays to be put to death.

Newcastle Falcons on Friday signed Scotland scrum-half Lawson from Premiership club Gloucester.

Lawson, 31, has agreed a two-year contract and becomes Newcastle's third key signing in the last few days following locks Carlo Del Fava and Scott MacLeod.

Lawson has won 30 Scotland caps, making his debut against Australia in 2006 and has been part of two World Cup campaigns. He has also captained his country.

"I am really looking forward to joining up with the Falcons this summer," Lawson said.

Anti-regime activists have called for Syria-wide protests on Friday in support of students in Aleppo, a day after thousands of them rallied, emboldened by the presence of UN truce observers.

Growing suspicions of an Al-Qaeda presence in Syria, meanwhile, further complicated matters for the fragmented opposition, which has repeatedly refuted any links to the Islamist organisation.

There is no credible terror threat to the NATO summit set to get underway Sunday in Chicago but security forces will nonetheless be on high alert, a spokesman for the FBI said Thursday.

"Obviously Chicago in the post-9/11 world has been considered a prime terrorist attack (target)," FBI Special Agent Ross Rice told AFP.

"We're a major metropolitan area. We're a transportation hub. We're a financial hub and our current president of the United States considers Chicago to be his hometown."

The United Nations and the Brazilian government are launching an Internet debate around 10 themes for a green planet to elicit suggestions from experts and the public for next month's Rio+20 summit.

"The objective of this initiative is to bring civil society closer to the negotiations" of Rio+20, the June 20-22 UN summit on sustainable development, Brazilian chief negotiator Andrea Correo do Lago said Thursday.

The site www.Riodialogues.org is open to all those who wish to make or vote on suggestions.

The daughter of Ukraine's detained former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko told US lawmakers Thursday she still feared for her mother's life, and implored them to "keep the pressure" on Kiev to help free political dissidents.

Speaking via live video link from Kiev to a House of Representatives hearing in Washington, Yevgenia Tymoshenko also warned that Ukraine's powerful current rulers will do "anything possible" to manipulate results of the country's upcoming October election.

The campaign Europe-vs-Facebook, run by an Austrian law student, said Thursday it had gathered the 7,000 comments required for the social networking website to review its privacy policy.

The announcement came as Facebook announced a price of $38 per share for its record-setting initial public offering, which would give the leading social network a giant market value of $104 billion (83 billion euros).

Dwain Chambers and David Millar were cleared for the London Olympics on Thursday after the British Olympic Association officially rescinded its lifetime ban for athletes found guilty of doping offences.

The formality followed the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruling which declared the BOA's controversial bye-law to be in direct contravention of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code.

US rap star 50 Cent tweeted Thursday that is recovering in hospital and posted a picture of himself with an array of cuddly toys -- although some questioned whether it was all a publicity stunt.

The rapper posted a string of messages on Twitter starting Wednesday with photos of himself in bed, after being hospitalized with what a friend, DJ Drama, told XXLMag.com was a stomach bug.

"I don't want to go into surgery," he said in one of the first tweets, showing him lying down and looking sleepy, adding "@FloydMayweather call my phone why your phone off."

Almost three decades after becoming France’s youngest-ever prime minister, Laurent Fabius (left) returned to government this week as the new French foreign minister. With Syria, Iran and Afghanistan high on the agenda, Fabius faces a baptism of fire.

It was a week of handovers. On Tuesday, France's first Socialist president in 17 years made his way up the red carpet and into the history books, becoming only the second Socialist since 1958 to take up residence at the Élysée palace.

A Frenchman who lost his limbs successfully swam from Papua New Guinea to Indonesia on Thursday, the first part of his mission to swim between five continents. Philippe Croizon, 43, used prosthetics with flippers to make the 20-kilometre journey.

France's new Socialist government agreed a 30% salary cut for the president and for members of the cabinet at its first meeting on Thursday. “It’s setting an example,” Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in a televised interview Wednesday.

Iran rejects Western pressures over its nuclear activities and will never give up its rights, Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator said Thursday ahead of crunch talks with world powers in Baghdad next week.

"If we participate in the negotiations... it is because of our resistance (to Western powers). Thanks to our resistance, we have defended the rights of the Iranian people," Saeed Jalili said in a speech broadcast on local television.

Japanese online giant Rakuten announced Thursday it was leading a $100 million investment in Pinterest, a fast-growing US bulletin-board style social media website.

Rakuten said it was joining with existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, and FirstMark Capital, and "a number of angel investors."

"The funding will allow Pinterest to continue improving its service and expanding its community globally," a statement said.

Shares in Spain's Bankia, taken over by the state because of its troubled loans, plunged Thursday after a newspaper said that clients had withdrawn more than one billion euros ($1.27 billion) in the past week.

Shares in the bank, created in 2010 from a merger of seven savings banks, dropped by 27.49 percent to 1.2 euros in early afternoon trading, less than one-third of their value of 3.75 euros when the shares were listed on July 20, 2011.