Paris - French shares were holding on to gains in mid-afternoon trading on Monday but banking and environmental stocks continued to lose ground.

The Paris Bourse's CAC 40 blue-chip index was up 1.45 per cent, to 3,378.27, with advancing issues outpacing fallers by 3 to 1.

The winners were led by energy supplier GDF Suez, which was up 9.44 per cent, to 32.16 euros, while French-American telecommunications supplier Alcatel-Lucent rose 
8.33 per cent, to 2.04 euros.

Paris - French shares were holding on to gains in early trading Monday but banking and environmental stocks were losing ground.

The Paris Bourse's CAC 40 blue-chip index was up 1.12 per cent, to 3,367.25, at mid-morning, with advancing issues outpacing fallers by 3 to 1.

The winners were led by three energy stocks, with energy suppliers GDF Suez and EDF up by 7.32 and 5.4 per cent, respectively, and oil giant Total gaining 5.28 per cent, on rising oil prices.

Veolia Environnement was down more than 16 per cent and Suez Environnment had lost 10 per cent because the finance crisis and imminent recession were dissuading European countries from undertaking planned ecological measures.

Paris - Sister Emmanuelle, the unorthodox and popular Belgian-born French nun who spent her life aiding the poor, has died at age 99, French media reported on Monday.

According to the Association Soeur Emmanuelle, which she founded, she died in her sleep early Monday in a nursing home in the southern French town of Callian.

Sister Emmanuelle was born Madeleine Cinquin to a French father

and Belgian mother in Brussels, on November 16, 1908.

She earned a degree in philosophy at the Sorbonne, then took her vows in 1929 and became a nun.

Paris - The head of the French bank Caisse d'Epargne has resigned after taking responsibility for a trading loss of 600 million euros (811 million dollars), French media reported Monday.

Charles Milhaud, who had led the Caisse d'Epargne since 1999, resigned late Sunday after a special meeting of the bank's board of supervisors. Milhaud said he would ask for no severance payment.

In addition, his chief executive officer, Nicolas Merindol, and the board member in charge of finances and risks, Julien Carmona, also resigned their posts.

Washington - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is investigating possible abuse of power by its head, Dominique Strauss- Kahn, in connection with a sex liaison with an underling of Hungarian origins, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The 59-year-old French economist and socialist, married to French television journalist Anne Sinclair, was named last year as IMF director.