Paris - The head of French insurance giant AXA, Henri de Castries, warned Thursday against any panicking about the economic situation and also assured investors that AXA itself was in sound shape.

"We are earning money every day and have never asked anyone for help," the head of Europe's second-largest insurance group said.

AXA had more than enough net assets and it would not now be in the interest of investors to try to seek a capital increase, he said.

Paris - The number of unemployed in France rose to 2.2 million in the fourth quarter 2008 on a seasonally adjusted basis, the French statistics office INSEE reported on Thursday in Paris.

Paris - French police have arrested a man in the southern city of Montpellier in regard to death threats sent to President Nicolas Sarkozy and several other conservative officials in recent days, France Info radio reported on Tuesday, citing police sources.

The arrest came after Sarkozy, Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, Justice Minister Rachida Dati, Culture Minister Christine Albanel and the mayor of Bordeaux, Alain Juppe, all received letters containing implicit threats to their lives and 9mm bullets.

Paris - Eurotunnel, the company that operates the Channel Tunnel connecting France and Britain, said on Wednesday that it had made profits of 39.72 million euros (50 million dollars) in 2008 and would pay out the first dividend in its history.

Despite a fire in one of the tunnels that drastically reduced traffic in the last four months of the year, Eurotunnel was able to increase its operating margin by 5 per cent, to 421 million euros, the company said in a statement.

Paris - French bank Credit Agricole said on Wednesday that its profits for 2008 fell by 74.7 per cent over the previous year, to 1.024 billion euros (1.28 billion dollars).

The sharp downturn was primarily caused by risk provision write-offs of 3.2 billion euros, up nearly 70 per cent over 2007.

"This large increase reflects the deterioration of the global economic environment," Credit Agricole said in a statement.

Paris, Mar 4 : Francois Perol, French President Nicolas Sarkozy''s Chief Economic Adviser, poked fun at British Prime Minister Gordon Brown''s failed attempts to eat Savoyard Fondue, a French cheese dish laid on for him by Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni.

Savoyard Fondue is a mixture of Alpine cheese and white wine eaten by spearing pieces of bread with a skewer and dipping them in the hot pot.