PARIS (Reuters) – Reports of the defection of a general and personal friend of Bashar al-Assad will cheer the Syrian leader’s enemies at a meeting in Paris on Friday of the Western and Arab states that want to drive him from power.

A source in the exiled opposition said Manaf Tlas, a brigade commander in Assad’s Republican Guard, was en route to Paris where the “Friends of Syria” group of states opposed to Assad was due to meet. He has family there.

PARIS (Reuters) – France will propose making United Nations envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan for Syria obligatory by invoking the U.N.’s “Chapter 7″ provision, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Wednesday, describing the conflict there as a “civil war”.

Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter allows the Security Council to authorize actions ranging from sanctions to military intervention. But Russia and China have previously vetoed two strong Security Council resolutions against Syria.

PARIS, April 5 (Reuters) – France has urged the European
Commission to resolve a row over plans to make airlines using EU
airports pay for their carbon emissions – a move that has
angered the United States, India and China and stirred threats
of a trade war.

The EU must “make all the necessary efforts” to find a
solution acceptable to countries outside the region, French
Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in a letter to European
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso late last month.

NANTERRE, France (Reuters) – Far-right leader Marine Le Pen said on Thursday she would balance France’s books if elected president by leaving the euro, slashing immigration, taxing imports and tapping the central bank for cheap loans instead of the debt markets.

The National Front leader, who ranks third in opinion polls, spelt out the financial planning behind her campaign promises just over three months before the first round of the presidential contest on April 22.

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) – Britain and France clashed over credit ratings on Friday, adding to tensions that erupted over British Prime Minister David Cameron’s veto of a treaty on euro zone fiscal integration.

British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg told French Prime Minister Francois Fillon French criticism of the British economy was unacceptable and called for a cooling of the rhetoric.

LONDON/PARIS, Dec 16 (Reuters) – Britain and France
clashed over credit ratings on Friday, adding to tensions that
erupted over British Prime Minister David Cameron’s veto of a
treaty on euro zone fiscal integration.

Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg told French Prime
Minister Francois Fillon French criticism of the British economy
was unacceptable and called for a cooling of the rhetoric.