Paris - Some 64 years after the massacre by German soldiers of 124 people in the village of Maille in western France, the alleged perpetrators have been identified, a press report said Saturday.

A German Waffen-SS batallion stationed in neighbouring Chatellerault was responsible for the attack during World War II, Le Figaro reported, quoting prosecutor Ulrich Maass.

Paris  - German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Saturday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, with the main order of business to be the joint opening of a memorial for the late French President Charles de Gaulle.

The two politicians were meeting in de Gaulle's home town of Colombey-les-deux Eglises, 120 kilometres south-east of Paris, on the 50 anniversary of the meeting of de Gaulle with then-West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer.

Paris  - The financial crisis is having a deep impact on the global demand for oil, as the economies of the industrial nations teeter on the brink of a recession, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported on Friday in its Monthly Oil Report.

Paris - French authorities have excluded a Muslim woman from a language course necessary for citizenship because she was wearing a burqa, the French daily Le Figaro reported on Friday.

In a decision rendered last month, the High Authority Against Discrimination and for Equality (HALDE) said that in certain regards the wearing of a burqa "is detrimental to republican values."

The decision was based on an assessment that wearing an all-body veil, such as the burqa which covers the entire body except for a slit for the eyes, hinders the teaching of language because
the instructor is unable to look at the student's face "to observe the expressions... accompanying the words."

Paris - Following big losses on Wall Street and Asian markets, French shares plummeted in early trading on Friday, with the benchmark CAC 40 tumbling more than 10 per cent before recovering slightly.

After one hour of trading, the index had given up 7.68 per cent, to 3,178.42, with all 40 listed shares in the minus column.

According to Benoit Debroissia, market analyst at Richelieu Finance in Paris, "We are going through a systemic shock in which risk propagates itself through the entire financial system like a virus."

Paris  - Winning a literary prize gives you time and the desire to continue writing, the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Literature, JMG Le Clezio, said Thursday.

"Winning a prize represents time, you gain time," the 68-year-old Le Clezio told France Inter radio just hours before he was named the winner of the prestigious award.

"It also gives you the desire to continue writing," he went on. "One writes to be read, to get a response. (A prize) is a response."