Paris  - The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders said Wednesday evening in Paris that it has pulled 70 staff members out of the Darfur conflict region of Sudan on the orders of the Khartoum government.

"We were ordered in writing a few days ago to withdraw for security reasons international workers from several locations by Wednesday," a spokeswoman for the group said.

Paris  - The new French special envoy to Afghanistan, Pierre Lellouche, said in an interview published Wednesday that NATO allies fighting on Afghan soil must not again revert to the unilateral approach taken by former US President George W Bush.

"It is normal that we act as co-pilots in the international strategy in Afghanistan," Lellouche told the daily Le Monde. "We must not again fall into the American unilateral excesses of the Bush administration, which provoked a deep gulf between the United States and its NATO allies."

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 - When French President Nicolas Sarkozy travels to Mexico on Sunday, one of his goals will be to obtain the transfer to France of a 34-year-old French woman convicted of kidnapping there.

"(The aim) of the French government, of the president of the Republic, is clearly to obtain Florence Cassez's transfer to France. There are arrangements which allow for this," government spokesman Luc Chatel told RFI radio.

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.