PARIS (Reuters) – French feminist Simone Veil, who survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and went on to become one of France’s most popular politicians, joined the elite Academie Francaise Thursday.

The Academie, a kind of linguistic supreme court that rules on issues such as finding French words for “computer” or “Internet,” has only admitted six women including Veil since it was founded by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635.

In a ceremony attended by President Nicolas Sarkozy, 82-year-old Veil, carrying a sword embellished with symbols of her life, spoke of her parents, both of whom died in concentration camps.

“I think of my mother every day, two-thirds of a century after she died in the hell of the Bergen-Belsen camp,” Veil said. “And it is also my father, who was deported and died in the Baltic countries, who is with me here.”

Nicknamed “the immortals” after the inscription on the seal of the Academie — “to immortality” — the 40 members range from writers and philosophers to doctors and military officials.

Veil’s sword, part of her Academie robes, had a grip sculpted of two hands locking in friendship. A female head marked her lifelong commitment to women’s rights. The sword’s hilt was engraved with “Birkenau” and a number tattooed on her arm in the camp.

Born Simone Jacob in Nice in 1927, she was arrested by the Germans in 1944 and deported. She survived and, after the war, studied political science in Paris. Later, she changed the lives of thousands of women by backing a law legalizing abortion as health minister for a center-right government in 1975.

PARIS (Reuters) – Funding to combat malaria must be more than tripled if the mosquito-borne disease which kills nearly a million people a year is to be fought effectively, health campaigners said on Thursday.

Presenting a report covering the past decade, the Roll Back Malaria Partnership said a jump in financing had helped to contain the disease but more needed to be done.

“In all the countries where there is sufficient financing, we are reaching our goals,” said Awa Marie Coll-Seck, executive director of the partnership, which is backed by the World Health Organization.

Total annual global funding was about $2 billion at the end of 2009, far short of the estimated $6 billion required annually to expand the campaign, the partnership said.

Coll-Seck said malaria remained a leading cause of child mortality in Africa. The partnership said last year the disease was claiming a life nearly every 30 seconds. In worst-hit countries it consumes 40 percent of public health spending [ID:nSP459775].

“Financing has a very swift impact,” said Michel Kazatchkine, director of the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. “In some countries, the number of malaria cases had fallen 50 percent over the past two years.”

The fund, set up in 2002, aims to raise government funding for 2011-2013 in the next few months.

PARIS (Reuters) – British designer Alexander McQueen’s dazzling final collection was shown in a somber setting Monday, weeks after his suicide, with the fashion house’s chief executive saying there was no talk of a successor.

Inspired by the Old Masters of painting, the autumn collection of dramatic red and gold gowns, gold feathers and Venetian capes paid homage to his extraordinary skill and love of the theatrical.

“We’ve been really focusing on this, on finishing the collection, we haven’t been thinking beyond that,” Chief Executive Jonathan Akeroyd told Reuters, visibly moved after the show in a discreet villa on a side street by the Seine.

“In the next few weeks, we are going to be working on the way ahead, but we’ve just really been concentrating on this presentation,” he said.

Asked about rumors that the Alexander McQueen label, owned by French retail giant PPR, had already started looking for a successor, Akeroyd vigorously shook his head and said: “No, no, no.”

PPR has pledged to continue to develop the McQueen brand, and boutiques have reported booming sales of his clothes and accessories since his death in February.

McQueen’s Atlantis-inspired spring collection of insect-printed dresses and sea alien shoes has just hit the shops, and Akeroyd said sales were “very strong.”

PARIS (Reuters) – If green is the color of hope, John Galliano’s latest collection for Dior perfectly captured the mood at Paris fashion week Friday as designers and fans dared to show optimism.

From Dior, where soft dresses in greens and pinks were spiced up with riding jackets and flirty stockings, to Vivienne Westwood, who matched princess gowns with paupers’ rags, fashionistas acknowledged the tough times while allowing themselves to have some fun.

Bags, huge hats and thigh-high boots on the catwalk kept executives happy as accessories continue to be the bestsellers of the fashion world.

“It was gorgeous, very daring and beautiful,” France’s stylish economy minister, Christine Lagarde, told Reuters after the Dior show, lifting her thumbs and shouting: “Up!” when asked what this meant for French exports.

Her presence was a sign of the changing mood. Last year, French politicians avoided the shows, wary of sipping champagne with the elite while voters were struggling with the economic crisis.

This year, the bubbly was back, and so was the elite, although some front-row seats were empty.

Hollywood wild child Lindsay Lohan, who will show her second collection for fashion house Ungaro next week after a widely panned debut, failed to turn up for her special appearance at Dior. She was seen hurrying toward the Dior tent in the sun-dappled Tuileries gardens just as the last models were wiping off their make-up, more than an hour after the show.

PARIS/VIENNA (Reuters) – Russia will back new sanctions against Iran as long as they do not create a humanitarian crisis, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday after talks with Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev.

Medvedev said he still hoped to avoid new punitive measures, but added Russia could not wait forever for cooperation by Tehran, suspected by the West of developing nuclear weapons.

“We are optimists and we are not losing the feeling that we may achieve success,” Medvedev said. “Nonetheless, if it doesn’t work out … Russia is ready to consider with our other partners the question of introducing sanctions.

Sarkozy told reporters: “(Medvedev) told me of his receptiveness to the question of sanctions so long as they don’t create humanitarian dramas.”

Israel, which sees itself directly threatened by any Iranian nuclear breakthrough, voiced optimism that China would not veto any new U.N. Security Council sanctions, saying Beijing had listened attentively to a visiting Israeli delegation.

Russia, and even more so China, have been reluctant in the past to endorse any broader sanctions against Iran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons.

A draft fourth Security Council resolution is expected as soon as this week. Some Western diplomats have predicted it would contain a “symbolic” tightening of sanctions against Iranian government assets like the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

PARIS (Reuters) – Afghan opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah said a plan to lure Taliban fighters away from the insurgency risked alienating the peaceful population by rewarding those involved in violence.

Abdullah told Reuters in an interview in Paris that NATO’s major military offensive could push some Taliban foot soldiers toward talks, but said Pakistan was jeopardizing the initiative.

“The continuation of support from Pakistan for the Taliban, that is one key element,” he said at his hotel in Paris’s government district, in between meetings with French politicians and activists.

“If they think they don’t have that support anymore, then of course that will affect the resolve of many, many people among the Taliban. If not the core leadership, it will not affect the suicide generation.”

A former foreign minister, Abdullah still looked very much the smooth diplomat, complete with easy manner, stylish suit and an impeccably groomed beard.

Abdullah lost to President Hamid Karzai in last year’s presidential race and wants to shape a broad opposition movement before parliamentary elections in September. He is also pressing for changes in the polling commission to avoid a repeat of last year’s widespread electoral fraud.

Karzai’s plan to reintegrate rank-and-file Taliban fighters will be funded by the West, using jobs and cash to lure militants into civil society.

PARIS (Reuters) – French retail giant PPR, one of the world’s top luxury goods groups, plans to develop the Alexander McQueen fashion brand even after the suicide of its charismatic and rebellious founder.

Fashionistas have been snapping up McQueen’s skull-encrusted bags and punky dresses since the designer’s death earlier this month, but questions remain over the label’s long-term success without his vision.

“Lee is irreplaceable of course,” PPR Chief Executive Francois-Henri Pinault told reporters on Thursday, using McQueen’s given first name.

“But even if it is among the smallest in the group, the company is in an excellent position,” he added. PPR owns the McQueen brand as well as other hip labels such as Stella McCartney.

Pinault said McQueen’s final collection would be shown during fashion week in March. Organisers said they were being flooded with calls asking about invites or offering condolences.

Trade magazine Drapers reported on Monday that sales of McQueen pieces soared 1,400 percent at the end of last week.

SKULLS AND SEA ALIENS

PARIS/BERLIN, Feb 4 (Reuters) – France and Germany called for urgent solutions to a funding crisis over Europe’s biggest military project, the A400M troop plane, but talks on Thursday between Airbus <EAD.PA> and NATO nations failed to agree a quick bailout.

Technical problems have pushed the 20 billion euro ($27.75 billion) project four years behind schedule and 11.2 billion euros over budget, threatening up to 10,000 jobs and sparking testy exchanges between the leading buyer Germany and Airbus.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke out following a summit in Paris, but stopped short of a formal declaration as gaps remained among negotiators at seven-nation talks in Berlin.

“Everything must be done to reach a solution. It is a decisive project which must be resolved very quickly,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at a joint news conference after the Franco-German summit.

“With regards to the A400M project, I think that the negotiations should be continued, and we agreed that this is a project of strategic significance, and that everything should be done to find a solution,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

The A400M is designed to put soldiers and heavy equipment in rugged combat zones like Afghanistan, and some backers see it as a prop to Europe’s efforts to forge its own defence identity.

Other buyers of the plane are Britain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain and Turkey.

PARIS (Reuters) – Parisian haute couture designers mixed skill and science Tuesday in a celebration of the “petites mains,” the nimble-fingered seamstresses who stitch together the world’s most expensive evening wear.

At the Chanel fashion show, Karl Lagerfeld indulged in the ancient craft of embroidery from metal-encrusted shoulders on dresses to silver shoes embellished with pearls.

“It takes hundreds of hours, these people work so hard,” Lagerfeld said with admiration for the “small hands” in his Paris atelier.

“For me, I just have the idea, a flash like that, I don’t have to actually do it.”

Stephane Rolland, a favorite with Middle Eastern royals and pop singers such as Cheryl Cole, worked with chemists to develop a supple form of red and black lacquer that he brushed on floor-sweeping gowns to dazzling effect.

Laser-cut discs of plexiglas were sewn onto fabric to create sculptural dresses in red and purple or white-on-white.

It took 10 embroiderers two weeks to attach the 26,000 pieces of plexiglas to Rolland’s bridal gown, the final model in his collection.

PARIS (Reuters) – Swathes of silk and clouds of tulle charmed pop stars and the super-rich at Paris haute couture shows this week, while off the catwalk the talk was of ways to create luxury with meager means.

As big names like Christian Dior and Giorgio Armani flew in celebrities for an hour of opulence, newcomers revealed a somewhat less glamorous side of fashion — such as personally sewing together gowns to save money.

“I like clothes that make me feel good, that I can mix,” pop star Tina Turner told Reuters at the Giorgio Armani Prive show, dominating a front row full of actresses.

The feel-good factor of haute couture gowns is essential to the world’s most expensive brands, helping them sell bags and perfume to the masses, but that formula seemed less certain as several houses faced deep losses and redundancies.

From Christian Lacroix to Cacharel, a number of famous names have fallen victim to the economic downturn. The not-so-famous ones are trying to survive with a mix of grit and elegance.

Alexandre Vauthier, who on Monday showed a collection of batman dresses in black or shock colors with chunky rhinestone belts and chokers, started his label about a year ago.

After his first collection last year, in the middle of the economic crisis, retailer Bon Marche ordered 15 dresses — but Vauthier did not have the funds to have them produced.