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Interview: Starbucks Opens Parisian Cafe

PARIS (Reuters) – U.S. coffee chain Starbucks Corp. will open its first cafe in Paris on Friday, and said it could expand to up to 10 branches in France by year-end.

If successful, Starbucks could then move to the country that invented short, strong espresso coffee, Italy, although this would not be until at least next year, Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday.

Schultz, who joined the company 10 years after it was founded in 1971, said he had been inspired by the French cafes and the Italian coffee bars before importing the concept of espresso bars to the company’s U.S. hometown Seattle.

French 'considering Iraq troops'

FRANCE may send a military contingent to Iraq to serve under a UN mandate once the US-led coalition has handed over sovereignty to the Iraqis in June, Le Monde newspaper said today.

Quoting an unnamed adviser to President Jacques Chirac, the paper said France would not object and may participate if the UN Security Council was to ask NATO to send in a multinational stabilisation force to Iraq similar to the SFOR force in Bosnia.

Chirac handling of Executive Life to be probed

The French parliament has bowed to pressure to launch a fact-finding mission into the way President Jacques Chirac’s centre-right government handled negotiations with US judicial authorities over the Executive Life affair.

However, the decision is likely to disappoint France’s Socialist opposition, which had called for a full parliamentary inquiry into the affair – a step up from the planned fact-finding mission, or “mission d’information”.

First lion mummy found in tomb near King Tut

For the first time, archaeologists have discovered a preserved lion skeleton in an ancient Egyptian tomb, demonstrating the exalted reputation enjoyed by the king of beasts more than 3,000 years ago.

A research team led by French archaeologist Alain Zivie found the lion’s remains in 2001 as they excavated the tomb of Maia, wet nurse to Tutankhamun, the “boy king” popular with museum visitors today for his opulent gold funeral relics. He ruled for 10 years and died around 1323 B.C.

France PM, EU President Still Disagree On Euro Pact Court Case

BRUSSELS (AP)–French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and European Commission President Romano Prodi agreed to disagree Wednesday on the European Union’s head office decision to take finance ministers to court for letting Germany and France violate budget rules.

After holding talks during a working dinner, the two were no closer to bridging deep and bitter divisions over the controversial legal decision that threatens to sour relations between Prodi’s office and E.U. countries for months to come.

Israeli journalists get first-hand look at France and problem of anti-Semitism

President Jacques Chirac told Israeli journalists on Tuesday that France is doing its utmost to combat anti-Semitism but that they, in turn, should treat France fairly, an organizer of the meeting said.

A group of some 30 journalists from Israel met Chirac at his Elysee Palace, along with their outlets’ Paris correspondents, in a visit organized to give the journalists a first-hand look at the situation of Jews in France.