Brussels - The French presidency of the European Union said Friday there would be no delay to a planned ban by 2012 of the tiny "battery" cages used by many producers for laying hens.

"I would not like us to go back on that date. I would not like to see it postponed. The council position is that battery farming should cease on that day," French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier told the European Parliament.

Animal rights activists have long campaigned against the use of conventional battery cages, where floor space is the equivalent of a sheet of A4 paper. This prevents hens from making even the most basic of movements, such as spreading their wings or even turning around.

Paris - The French economy contracted by 0.3 per cent in the second quarter of the year, the first quarter of negative GDP growth since 2002, the government's statistical office INSEE announced on Friday.

The announcement could be the first of a series of bad news for France's economy. French radio reported Friday that the unemployment figures to be made public on Monday will be the worst in 10 years, with up to 40,000 adults added to the jobless rolls in August.

On Thursday, in a speech on the current economic crisis, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the turmoil in the American finance sector would affect French economic growth, joblessness and purchasing power.

Toulon, France - The economic turmoil provoked by crises in the American sub-prime and finance markets has put an end to the free- market economy, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday in the southern French city of Toulon.

"Laissez-faire is finished, the all-powerful market that is always right, that's finished," Sarkozy said in a widely anticipated speech, his first in France on the economic crisis.

Paris - European aerospace group EADS said Thursday that the first flight of its new A400M multi-purpose military transport plane has been postponed "because of the unavailability of the propulsion system."

The postponement is another blow for EADS, which has already lost billions of euros because of delays to its A380 superjumbo and A350XWB aircraft.

Barbara Kracht, a spokeswoman for EADS subsidiary Airbus, which is building the A400M, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that it was too early to speculate about how long the setback would delay delivery of the plane.

Paris  - The European Union plans to send more than 300 observers to Georgia, substantially more than had been foreseen, a French foreign ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.

Asked during an electronic press conference about media reports that the mission could comprise 340 observers, instead of the 200 originally called for, Frederic Bouillon said, "We confirm that the EU observation mission in Georgia could comprise 300 observers, to which must be added the logistical support personnel."

Brussels - France intends to call an emergency summit of the world's leading economic powers before the end of the year to respond to the global financial crisis, French Europe Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet confirmed Wednesday.

France, the current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, "wants to summon a meeting based on the Group of Eight (leading industrialized nations) before the end of the year, with one topic the regulation of financial markets," Jouyet told the European Parliament.

"We need new, common rules on an international level for a better control of financial markets," he said.