Mirror site to face French court

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25 October 2011 Last updated at 14:03 GMT The Sunday Mirror published a story claiming Olivier Martinez had reunited with Kylie Minogue The UK's Sunday Mirror has lost its bid to stop Kylie Minogue's French ex-boyfriend Olivier Martinez suing it in France for alleged breach of privacy.

European judges ruled he could seek damages in any EU member where the online story was accessible.

Judges in France will also next month decide whether the News of the World breached the privacy of Max Mosley, filmed with prostitutes at a 2008 orgy.

Both rulings could have far-reaching implications for the British press.

In 2008 the Sunday Mirror website published a story that Olivier Martinez, an actor, had re-united with ex-girlfriend Kylie Minogue, a story he believed infringed his right to privacy.

Landmark ruling

Mr Martinez launched legal action against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) alleging interference with his private life and infringement of his right to his image.

MGN lawyers had argued the connection between the online publication of the information in the UK and the alleged damage in France was insufficiently close.

But on Tuesday, Judges at the European Court of Justice ruled that the placing of content on a website was different from "the regional distribution of printed matter" because the online material "can be consulted by an indefinite number of internet users worldwide".

The EU judges ruled that the court best placed to assess the potential impact on an individual's "personality rights" might be the court where the individual had his "centre of interests" or "habitual residence".

That court would have "jurisdiction in respect of all damage caused within the territory of the EU", they said.

However, if appellants chose to "bring an action before the courts of each member state in the territory of which the online content is or has been accessible" any compensation awarded by national courts could only relate to damage caused in their jurisdictions, they said.

The BBC's Paris correspondent, Christian Fraser, says in a sense their ruling is already about to be tested.

In November, former motorsport world governing body chief Max Mosley will discover whether he has won a battle against the News of the World in Paris over an article the now-closed newspaper published about his sexual practices in 2008.

He has already won a privacy battle against the News of the World in the British courts, but brought a separate action because copies of the newspaper and the video of him at a sadomasochistic orgy were circulated in France.

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French rugby's moment of glory?

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21 October 2011 Last updated at 23:21 GMT By Hugh Schofield BBC News, Paris Fans at a French bakery show support for the team If you want a flavour of how French rugby views the World Cup, then the best advice is to tune in to the Moscato show every evening on RMC Info radio.

Vincent Moscato, international hooker turned actor and comedian, hosts two hours of uproarious chat unpicking the latest goings-on in New Zealand.

With him in the Champs-Elysees studio are Sebastian "Caveman" Chabal and Richard Pool-Jones, a flanker who had a single turn-out for England in the 1990s and then spent the rest of his playing career in Biarritz and Paris.

His idiomatic French is unimpeachable.

The show is always a pungent mix of jocularity, expert opinion shouted at high volume, and constant interruptions.

But this week it moved into overdrive, because this competition in particular, is proving an utter conundrum for the French.

Is their team as wretched as everyone says it is? But if so, how come it is in the final?

Have "Les Bleus" sacrificed all that used to be beautiful in the French game on the altar of that treacherous goddess Victory?

Or are they still guardians of the mythic spark of Gallic originality which only awaits the right moment to burst again into flame?

And will that moment be Sunday?

'Winning ugly'

In the studio passions flare.

Supporters in a Parisian bar watch the narrow French victory over Wales in the semi-final

Callers, invariably from the south-west - the spiritual home of French rugby - berate coach Marc Lievremont.

An argument breaks out over whether he was right to call his players "une bande de sales gosses" (a gang of dirty kids) for going out drinking after their ghastly victory over Wales.

For some it is a worrying sign of a breakdown of confidence with the squad, but others disagree.

Lievremont knows exactly what he's doing, they say. He's needling his players in order to build up their aggression.

It's French rugby talk.

It's earthy, boisterous, opinionated and full of good humour.

But amid all the shouting, one thing shines through.

There is not one contributor in the studio or on the phone who does not think France have a good chance of winning against New Zealand.

And there is not one contributor who would dream of diluting their devout commitment to the national side, just because they've been "winning ugly".

A quick re-cap then, to remind ourselves how "Les Bleus" got into this odd situation of being at the same time finalists and (outside of France) the most reviled team in the Cup.

After two uninspiring victories against no-hopers Japan and Canada, France were trounced 17-37 by New Zealand and then ignominiously beaten 14-19 by Tonga.

But they qualified for the knock-out stage and redeemed themselves with a tough 19-12 quarter-final win over England.

And then came last Sunday's horrible match against Wales.

France scraped through by nine points to eight against 14 men, but no-one seriously thinks they deserved to win.

The end-result in the past week has been a torrent of abuse from the English-speaking rugby press, furious at the sneaky, unsporting manner of France's progress.

Ten million French TV viewers watched France qualify for the final

Peter Bills of the New Zealand Herald said the Wales match had killed his love of French rugby.

It was "a disgrace, pathetic, the performance of wimps".

He wrote: "A nation that hurls its great traditions, its roots out of the window is lost, cast aside.

"This French team did that and deserves our complete scorn for doing so."

Here in France, there has also been some soul-searching about whether, in the words of Le Monde's Erwan Le Duc, "gagner salement" (winning ugly) is really winning at all.

At L'Equipe newspaper, feature writer Henri Bru says part of French rugby's image is that its victories are always won through flair and "le beau jeu" (beautiful play).

"It's true there is a divorce now between this image of rugby and the reality of how we've been playing.

"We've got to the final thanks to two things: pragmatism and luck.

"Supposedly that's not in our tradition but in fact if you look at some of the great French victories over the years, they were won not by amazing creative play by the backs, but by big packs and good kickers.

"There's a bit of mythologising in all of this."

In any case, many fans draw hope from another great tradition in French rugby - total inconsistency.

The fact that the side has been playing timorous, cack-handed rugby for the past five matches is actually, according to this logic, a reason for hope.

"I genuinely believe the odds are 55-45 in our favour," says Serge Lacombe, a wine-shop owner and rugby nut who was in New Zealand for the pool stage and watched the defeat against Les Blacks.

"In that match New Zealand smashed us in the first half but people forget that in the second half the scoreline was about even.

"What we have to do is knock them out of their regular game."

Growing popularity

The French are growing more and more interested in rugby.

The game is spreading fast out of its heartlands in the south-west and Paris.

Ten million people watched the match against Wales, and 30-second advertising slots for the final cost 125,000 euros.

Back in the Moscato show studio, the team are arguing whether it is a good thing for Les Bleus that they have come in for so much abuse.

For Richard Pool-Jones, with his impeccable French, the answer is clear. There could be no better way of entering the final.

"If they had played a cracking match against Wales, everyone would have said what a wonderful side they were, and that would have wrecked everything.

"But being hated like this - it's perfect," he says.

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French left milks novelty of presidential primary

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France's Socialist Party primary election candidates, from L-R, Jean-Michel Bayle, Martine Aubry, Manuel Valls, Francois Hollande, Arnaud Montebourg, and Segolene Royal, pose in the studios of BFM news television, after their final debate in Paris, October 5, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Fred Dufour/Pool

By Brian Love

PARIS | Thu Oct 6, 2011 2:55pm EDT

PARIS (Reuters) - France's Socialists have the wind in their sails less than seven months from a presidential election, buoyed by the novelty of an American-style primary and the airtime access it is giving them.

The presidential favorite is a Socialist, but there is more to it than opinion polls suggesting party veteran Francois Hollande -- still relatively unknown outside France -- would easily unseat the incumbent, conservative Nicolas Sarkozy.

The country's first open-door primary is a Socialist innovation, inspired by the momentum that got Barack Obama into the White House, and conservative rivals are watching with mounting envy as millions of French tune in to hear Socialists explain why they must vote for the left after five years of Sarkozy.

One of France's more obscure TV stations said on Thursday it had drawn a record high of nearly 3.7 million viewers the previous night for a live debate between six politicians seeking to run for president next April on a Socialist Party ticket.

The LCP channel, a narrow-focus broadcaster of parliamentary affairs, was one of many TV and radio stations that seized on the novelty of a primary to turn airwaves over to the main opposition party three times in as many weeks, for debates of more than two hours of prime time media exposure.

Some 5 million people watched the first such debate on France 2 state television in mid-September, while 3.5 million tuned in to a second one on i>tele.

The battle for the Socialist ticket has also generated heavy print coverage of the policy stances, stature and body language of the six candidates, reinforcing perceptions that conservatives are less present or have less to propose.

No wonder, skeptics say, that Hollande appears to be consolidating his opinion poll lead over Sarkozy and fellow left-wingers in the primary, where the first of two rounds of voting takes place on Sunday.

Beyond who ultimately wins -- the second runoff round is set for October 16 -- the primary itself is shaping up as a triumph for the Socialists, who hope that at least a million people will take part in a contest open to any voter who pays a euro and signs a document professing support for left-wing principles.

The Socialists have organized primaries in the past but they have been limited to party cardholders, whose number is estimated at around 200,000 at best.

If they muster a turnout of a million or more, analysts say, the Socialist presidential candidate stands to gain considerable legitimacy, as long the victory in the primary is clear-cut.

Either way, Sarkozy's UMP party, initially hostile, appears to be coming to the conclusion that they will one day have to take a leaf out of their opponents' book.

UMP party chief Jean-Francois Cope had sought to cast doubt on the motives behind the Socialist primary some months ago. But Prime Minister Francois Fillon paid tribute to it this week and said the UMP should aim to do likewise, not ahead of the 2012 election but for the following presidential battle in 2017.

Hollande, whose former partner Segolene Royal is also in the running but seen unlikely to win, savored the acknowledgment from Fillon.

"It's not because he's from the right that he cannot see the utility of something that comes from the left," Hollande said in response to Fillon's endorsement on Wednesday.

Others from the UMP camp are starting to sing the same tune.

"I've always been a supporter of the primary process, which makes room for more original candidacies," said Valerie Pecresse, a young budget minister and government spokeswoman who may herself be considering a shot for the presidency in 2017.

Right now, Sarkozy has yet to declare but is widely expected to seek a second term in next April's presidential election.

He may be looking for a way to respond to all the media attention given to his political opponents on the left.

Le Figaro, a newspaper close to Sarkozy and his party, says Sarkozy's communications advisers are worried that his penchant for addressing voters in speeches may mean his words have too short a shelf-life and that he is considering issuing a letter to France's 45 million voters in early 2012, a time when many believe he will announce his re-election goal.

(Writing by Brian Love; additional reporting by Patrick Vignal and Elizabeth Pineauy; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

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Swim feat of when turned off French

5. October 2011 last updated at 02: 15 GMT by Christian Fraser BBC News, Paris Philippe Croizon explains, what inspired him on his latest ChallengeFrom banks take, they look like two sharp swimmer.

Philippe Croizon and Arnaud Chassery are most days the waters of their local boating lake, ploughs, to training for their next big challenge.

But under the water line, they are very different. Philippe has no arms and no legs.

Seventeen years ago the former steel during the adaptation of a TV antenna on the roof, was awarded to workers electrical shock an overhead line.

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, when they amputated the left foot, my last limb, I wanted to die. I was so depressed, as low as you can get. "But you have to decide - and I decided me to life"

end quote Philippe Croizon of an electric charge of 20,000 volts merged him on the metal head, on which he stood.

He would be killed immediately, but an other thundering free snapped him back to life. The time help came, was he so badly burned, that his arms and legs had to be removed.

"When she amputated my last link in the left leg I wanted to die," he said. "I was so depressed, as low as you can get." "But you have to decide - and I decided to live."

He says that he was inspired in the Hospital of swimming. He saw a documentary on television about an Englishwoman, who earlier this year had swum the English channel.

"Wow, I thought." Why do can not I do this? Why swimming not I the channel? "I don't know why, but it became an obsession", said Philippe.

Fourteen years later Canal between France and England - a performance that has been achieved only by some 900 other, able-bodied, swimmers was the 34 km (21-mile) the 43 year-old who first cross when turned off.

He crossed from Folkestone, Cap Gris Nez in 13 hours, 23 minutes - well above its 20-hour target.

Valuable partnerships

Plan now, he and colleagues to swim four other Strait between five continents channel swimmer Arnaud.

Arnaud Chassery and Philippe Croizon prepare the water type

Next year, the couple tried cross: the icy Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia; Shark-infested Gulf of Aqaba between Asia and Africa; and the Strait between Gibraltar and Morocco, and between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

Philippe is surrounded by loving and devoted people including his partner, Suzana, which he on the Internet met.

She drives him to the training and is always there, with some of the more mundane things that fail to support Philippe.

But it is Arnaud, who takes over at the Lake.

On the edge of the pier Philippe the stumps of the legs, throws a Arnaud gently on which pair of silicone protective films. Then he fits Philippe plastic, fiberglass-thigh extensions. They are to keep each specially designed for the large blue Club, who exercise it through the water.

As soon as he "dressed", wheels Arnaud be friend to the water's edge. From this point on, they are the same.

Ex-couch-potato

"It took two years to prepare for my first channel swim," said Philippe.

"I started anything out." Before the accident, I was a real couch potato; I have the next to sport saw football with a bag of chips. So, gradually transformed I swim my body for that. I lift weights; I swam each day - 36 hours per week. "I swam two years about 4,000 km (2.485 miles)."

The training does look regime tiring, even for Arnaud.

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we want to show people that with determination, perseverance and lot of training, you can do the same as non-disabled people "

end quote Philippe Croizon in the home, they sit on the lawn and do their sit-ups together." In the House, Philippe has its own gym. A rack of roles that his arms measures the stumps, equipped.

In the water, Philippe average 2.5 km/h (1.55 mph), half-speed a swimmer like Arnaud. But by training together, they learn to synchronize their efforts. During the challenge they are next to each other - except in the Bering Strait - swimming, where Arnaud is set his own pace to keep warm.

Philippe hopes that their challenge disability in the areas of developing countries will encourage a different attitude, where they will travel.

"When it comes to training, Arnaud, me, fit the prosthesis kit has." In the country, I'm really just a big baby.

"But much of this expedition is the solidarity between Arnaud and me." No matter what I do does Arnaud. I do what he does. We remove the differences between us. In the water, we are the same. We are both human.

"We want to show people [in Africa and Asia] that with determination, perseverance and lot of training, you can do the same as non-disabled people."

No boundaries

Philippe is certainly an inspiration for people with disabilities in their own country - including 17-year-old son Gregory, who is dyslexic and was accident in two months after his father.

"I am very proud my father", he said. "He is just incredible." Sometimes, I think it is crazy to do all these things. But if he must do the life, then I think that he should do it.

The sky really is the limit for Philippe Croizon

"My father is a great example for me." He shows me that everyone can achieve extraordinary things.

"I have serious dyslexia, so I it find very difficult to write and read." But when I see my father succeeded, I think about the channel and swimming: I will fight for it! I work hard in school, and I'll make it! And it works: since last year, I have only good grades - I am my class. "

The biggest challenge for Philippe and Arnaud will be increased to 500,000 euro (£ 430,000) you still need to fund the trip.

In the Gulf of Aqaba, they must swim boats spotter - sharks and poisonous jellyfish - besides a flotilla and doctors, it should go wrong. There is much cost.

"We are preparing in the hope that we to increase the money", said Philippe.

"The only, we are what fear is so sea creatures - sharks, things." "But we have lots of security help on the surface — will be around us it three or four boats,."

After two hours of training in the Lake, he went to nearby castle close to Poitiers meet a team were hot-air balloon. The basket in which he travelled, had specifically for wheelchair users - it was the first balloon flight.

Strapped etched in a smile across his face, he drove into the clouds as he would have ballooning throughout his life.

"You see we can do something," he shouted, beaming.

Philippe Croizon is a notable French - for whom the sky really is the limit.

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French Schools Are Rationing Ketchup To Keep Their Children French

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French officials are implementing a saucy new restriction on school cafeterias.

In an effort to combat obesity and promote healthy and culturally French eating, The Times reports that ketchup "is to be rationed in primary and secondary school canteens to ensure that French children remain French." Apparently, officials are concerned that children are starting to neglect French foods in favor of "US-style snacks."

(PHOTOS: A Worldwide Day's Worth of Food)

The new rules state that cafeterias must offer four to five dishes every day, including a main course, a starter or dessert and a dairy product such as cheese or yogurt. Baguettes and bread should be available for every meal, but ketchup and its gloppy condiment cousin, mayonnaise, will only be allowed with certain foods. Ketchup will provided with fries; however, they'll only be served once a week.

"We have to ensure that children become familiar with French recipes so that they can hand them down to the following generation," Christophe Hebert, chairman of the National Association of Directors of Collective Restaurants told The Times. "We absolutely have to stop children from being able to serve those sorts of sauces to themselves with every meal. Children have a tendency to use them to mask the taste of whatever they are eating."

NewsFeed admits that Hebert has a point: kids do tend to smother their food in ketchup to mask the taste when they're in the school cafeteria. Perhaps Hebert has forgotten what canteen food tastes like, but NewsFeed pities the children who're forced to go whole meals without a little ketchup to negate the taste of cardboard.

MORE: What's In Your Taco?

Amanda Knox dreamed of going home. Now she's there. She touched down in Seattle late Tuesday and was greeted by family, friends and a whole lot of reporters. Read More

"(The Rapture will) be finished out on Oct. 21, that's coming very shortly. That looks like it will be ... the final end of everything."

— HAROLD CAMPING, giving an update on when the Rapture, an event he says started on May 21, will finish (via Christian Post)

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Strauss-Kahn faces French accuser

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29 September 2011 Last updated at 09:45 GMT The BBC's Christian Fraser: "Tristane Banon said she wanted to look into the eyes of Dominique Strauss-Kahn"

Ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the French writer who accuses him of attempted rape have confronted each other as part of a police inquiry.

Police are investigating Tristane Banon's complaint before prosecutors decide whether to press charges.

Mr Strauss-Kahn is said to admit making "an advance" on Ms Banon, but denies any violence, and is suing for slander.

She made the allegations in June, when Mr Strauss-Kahn was accused of rape in New York; that case was later dropped.

The confrontation took place at a Paris police station without lawyers present, but with police officers in the room.

Police confrontations are held when two people in a case give different versions of events.

Mr Strauss-Kahn left the police station a couple of hours after arriving without making any comments.

Continue reading the main story Christian Fraser BBC News, Paris

After the confrontation, it will be up to the court to decide which way to take it. They can either decide there is no case to answer. They could decide that this was a case of less serious sexual abuse, but in that case, eight years on, under the statute of limitation, the case would be put to one side.

Or they could decide that on the evidence of the investigation that has been going on since July, there needs to be further investigation and an investigating judge would been appointed.

But you can imagine for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is trying to relaunch is political career, he is very keen for this to be put to one side and he will be hoping that the police believes his side of the story.

Both parties have been interviewed by police over the alleged incident.

Ms Banon, 32, has said she is keen to confront her alleged attacker.

"I want him in front of me so he can look into my eyes and say to my face that I imagined it."

Ms Banon alleges she had to fight off Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, "with kicks and punches" when he tried to rip off her clothes during an interview at Paris flat in 2003.

Ms Banon first made the allegations in a TV chat show in 2007, when Mr Strauss-Kahn's name was bleeped out.

The former International Monetary Fund director, who was once tipped as a future French president, recently returned to France.

He also still faces a civil suit by his alleged victim in New York, Nafissatou Diallo.

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French left captures upper house

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25 September 2011 Last updated at 21:48 GMT The French Socialists are savouring their historic victory over the conservatives French President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative government has lost its majority in the Senate for the first time in recent French history.

The Socialist Party and its Communist and Green allies have won enough seats to gain control of the upper house.

Their victory comes just seven months before the country's presidential election in April.

Right-wing parties have controlled the Senate since the Fifth Republic was founded in 1958.

Early results from the indirect elections showed left-wing candidates took at least 23 seats from the governing conservative party, giving them an absolute majority.

"The 25th of September, 2011, will go down in history," Jean-Pierre Bel, head of the Socialist group in the Senate, said on French television.

"The results of this Senate election represent a real comeuppance for the right."

France's conservative Prime Minister Francois Fillon has said the right had suffered from its divisions and that the left had made a "strong breakthrough".

"The moment of truth will come next spring. The battle begins tonight," he said in a statement.

Of the 170 seats up for grabs in the election, Mr Sarkozy's centre-right UMP party had 147 seats out of a total 343 to the Socialist Party's 115 before Sunday's vote.

The number of seats in the upper house is being increased to 348 to reflect an increase in population.

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French left seizes Senate majority, hurts Sarkozy

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy attends a ceremony commemorating the Harkis, Algerian soldiers loyal to the French during the Algerian war, at the Invalides in Paris, September 25, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Philippe Wojazer

By Sophie Louet

PARIS | Mon Sep 26, 2011 3:32am EDT

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative government lost its majority in the Senate to the left on Sunday, officials said, in a historic defeat that deals him a blow just seven months before a presidential election.

For the first time since 1958, the right-dominated upper house swung to a left-wing majority as the body's membership underwent a major generational change of guard.

Early results from the indirect elections showed left-wing candidates took at least 23 seats from the ruling conservative party, securing them an absolute majority.

The shift to the left, which UMP Senate leader Gerard Larcher had described as having "seismic" consequences ahead of a presidential election next April, drew howls of joy from left-wing supporters at a meeting in Paris.

"The 25th of September, 2011, will go down in history," Jean-Pierre Bel, head of the Socialist group in the Senate, said on LCI television. "The results of this Senate election represent a real comeuppance for the right."

The left's victory followed a series of wins by Socialist candidates in local elections in the same regions where tens of thousands of municipal officials -- empowered as so-called "super voters" in the Senate poll -- cast votes on Sunday.

SYMBOLIC SETBACK

A left-leaning Senate will not be able to derail Sarkozy's legislative plans but the loss of a longstanding bastion for the right is a symbolic setback especially when taken together with his persistently poor poll ratings.

Sarkozy has become slightly more popular in the past few months, but he remains one of the least well-liked presidents in post-war France and faces a tough battle for reelection in a two-round vote scheduled for next April.

French voters are depressed about their economic prospects, unemployment remains stubbornly high and a European debt crisis has invited intensive scrutiny of France's public finances.

Such worries have overshadowed Sarkozy's foreign policy victories, notably France's role in the toppling of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the result was a result of divisions in the ruling camp.

"Today, the opposition has shown strong progress in the Senate, underscored by divisions in the ruling camp in several regions," he said in a statement.

"The moment of truth will come next spring. Tonight, the battle begins, and the results of this Senate election show us what sort of effort we will have to produce."

Government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse pointed out that the right retained a majority in the National Assembly.

"This is in no way a point of blockage for the government because, as you know, it's the National Assembly that has the last word," she said.

Sarkozy, in the final months of his term, faces a tough battle for reelection against Francois Hollande, the most likely Socialist candidate.

"This victory creates a dynamic ... If we could win the presidency of the republic after winning the presidency of the Senate, that would be a good," Hollande said on LCI television.

There is no major legislation outstanding that a left-wing Senate could delay, but losing his majority there would bury Sarkozy's grand plan to get a budget-balancing debt rule written into the French constitution, a measure that could have been an anchor for France's AAA-rating.

Parliament already has approved an adjustment to the 2011 budget bill to incorporate a bigger bailout for Greece as agreed by euro zone states on July 21, and the 2012 budget bill should pass without hitches.

Of the 170 seats up for grabs in the election, the UMP had 147 seats out of a total 343 to the Socialist Party's 115 before Sunday's vote. Final results are expected later on Sunday.

The number of seats in the upper chamber will be increased on Sunday to 348, reflecting a rise in the population.

Sarkozy is expected to announce sometime in November that he will run for a second term in next April's election.

(Reporting by Catherine Bremer, Nicholas Vinocur, Emile Picy and Sophie Louet; Writing by Nicholas Vinocur; Editing by Sophie Hares)

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