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France Telecom cash call agreed

Shareholders in France Telecom have approved plans to raise up to 30bn euros to help the company deal with its crippling debt.

But chief executive Thierry Breton told the shareholders he would need only 15bn euros (£10.3bn; $16.2bn) to shore up the balance sheet.

At a meeting in Paris he said the company’s debt stood at nearly 70bn euros at the end of last year.

And he promised that profits would rise above 20bn euros by 2005 as the company tackled the debt mountain.

Death of Top Chef Shocks France

PARIS (AP)–Like many a great artist, Bernard Loiseau was a fragile and sometimes tortured soul, a perfectionist tending to one of France’s greatest passions: food.

Loiseau’s apparent suicide Monday shocked France, plunged the gastronomic world into mourning and raised a storm of condemnation from fellow culinary masters, who blamed all-powerful food critics for pushing the celebrated chef toward despair.

The death also served as a solemn reminder of France’s complex relationship with food.

France Likely to Exceed Budget Deficit Limits

France said for the first time its 2002 public deficit likely topped the three percent limit set by the European Union.