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France to Proceed With Utility Reforms

Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told trade union leaders Tuesday he would press ahead with reform of France’s state-owned power and gas giants despite threats of strikes.

Sarkozy told union leaders he plans to introduce a draft law in early June to give Electricite de France and Gaz de France the status of ordinary companies – paving the way for listing their shares and selling some of them on the stock market.

The minister’s comments came as he and Health Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy separately met with workers’ representatives in a bid to calm growing trade union discontent over the government’s broader reform agenda.

U.S. warning halts Paris trains

 Police in Paris halted traffic on a commuter train line for about an hour Thursday evening after the United States warned French officials of a possible bomb attack, police said.

Authorities found nothing suspicious and lifted the alert around 9:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. ET).

The RER-A line was stopped and passengers were evacuated while officials conducted inspections of the rails and stations, authorities said.

Police headquarters in Paris said the CIA alerted it to the threat of a bomb attack directed at the underground train lines or the Metro subway system.

In Washington, an administration source said the U.S. government told the French government about a nonspecific but credible threat of a bomb attack.

Globalist: At a time of division, turbulence in France

The night after Israeli forces killed the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a little incident occurred in this southern French town where the sea glitters and the sun glows but all is not quite as tranquil as it appears.

McDonald's flourishes in France

MILLAU, France — Back in 1999, a sheep farmer in an Asterix mustache led a small band of Gauls on a Big Mac attack heard’round the world. A proud, feisty France, he exulted, humbled Imperial McDonald’s.

The symbols seemed perfect. Asterix, a French comic-book hero who drew super-strength from a magic potion, saved his corner of Gaul from Rome. But, this time, the Empire struck back.

Today Jose Bove, the Farmers’ Confederation firebrand, risks slipping away into history. “McDo” cash registers at 1,030 locations, meanwhile, ring up a million sales a day to French customers.

U.S. takes opposite tack from France in head scarf debate

The hallways of Benjamin Franklin Science Academy in quiet Muskogee, Oklahoma, are far from those of the tough, lower-class Paris suburbs where the battle was fought over the right of Muslim girls to wear head scarves required by their religion.