Paris - French shares shrugged off Wall Street's indecisiveness on Friday to end a volatile week on a positive note.

The Paris Bourse's CAC 40 blue-chip index finished Friday's session up 4.68 per cent, at 3,329.92, with advancing issues besting losers by 3 to 1.

Steel giant ArcelorMittal led the advance, gaining 10.57 per cent, to end the week at 22.22 euros. Energy supplier GDF Suez was also sought by investors, climbing by 
10.51 per cent, to 29.39 euros.

Paris (dpa) - French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde has asked the
government's bank oversight authority to look into the country's
second-largest banking group, Caisse d'Epargne, after it announced a
loss of 600 million euros (804 million dollars) in a derivatives trade,
French radio reported Friday.

The loss, which the bank described as a "market incident," occurred
during the week of October 6, when the Paris Bourse's CAC 40 index lost
22 per cent of its value.

The Caisse d'Epargne, which controls some 358 billion euros in
savings deposits, said Friday in a statement that the loss was caused
by "the extreme volatility of the markets and the stock market crash of
the week of October 6."

Paris - French shares shrugged off Wall Street's weak opening and were holding on to modest gains in mid-afternoon trading on Tuesday.

Paris - Following big losses overnight on Wall Street and in Asia, French shares slumped on Thursday as fears of a deep recession turned investors bearish.

The Paris Bourse's CAC 40 blue-chip index ended the day off by 5.92 per cent, at 3,181, as declining issues outpaced advancing shares by 9 to 1.

Insurance giant Axa was the day's biggest loser, plunging by 12.51 per cent to 16.33 euros. Industrial group Bouygues and transport manufacturer Alstom gave up 11.1 and 10.15 per cent, respectively.

Paris, Oct. 16 : French police are probing whether Russia''s leading human rights lawyer was poisoned by a suspicious substance found hidden in her car.

Detectives in the town of Strasbourg were examining whether Karinna Moskalenko, the country''s most prominent defender of Kremlin opponents, had been deliberately poisoned.

Moskalenko said on Monday her husband discovered "large" quantities of a mercury-like substance hidden under her car seat.

Moskalenko had been due yesterday to attend the Moscow trial of three men accused of involvement in the murder of the crusading Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin, was shot dead two years ago outside her Moscow flat.

Brussels - The French government on Thursday was pushing for a European Union deal on fighting climate change in December, despite persistent opposition from Poland, official documents revealed.

Poland on Wednesday threatened to veto a draft EU summit statement if it involved a pledge to approve a sweeping package of laws on fighting climate change in December.

But after a night of intensive negotiations, the French government, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, set out a new draft summit statement insisting that EU member states "reaffirm that (their) objective is to reach agreement in December."