PARIS (Reuters) – Veteran pop star Tina Turner may yet call her troupe of dancers out for another world tour, though for the moment she prefers home-cooked dinners and a stress-free life.

Sitting in the front row at the Giorgio Armani Prive fashion show in Paris on Monday, the 70-year-old looked radiant in a sparkling black top that revealed ample cleavage, her trademark mass of curls piled up high.

“People wanted to see me, so many were holding signs up saying, Thank You,” she said of her 2008 tour, which grossed $47.7 million.

“I haven’t made a decision yet,” she told Reuters when asked if she would stage another tour. “I didn’t make a plan for a big tour, with big stadiums. I’m not saying I won’t do it, get the girls out and do something, but I haven’t decided.”

Turner has for decades been one of the world’s most successful performers, roaring out hits like “Simply The Best” and “What’s Love Got To Do With It” in stage-stomping, high-octane concerts.

At Armani, as models prepared backstage for an haute couture show of sweeping white gowns and folded skirt suits, Turner said she liked simple clothes for everyday wear but still had a passion for racy outfits.

“My favorites are short skirts that work for heavy dancing,” she said. “I have a short torso, and it looks better with a short skirt.”

PARIS (Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants NATO allies meeting next week to agree on steps to gradually transfer responsibility in Afghanistan to local forces, along with a reorganization of international troops.

In his New Year’s address to the diplomatic community, Sarkozy said France’s 4,000-strong contingent in Afghanistan aimed at bringing stability to its main battleground, the province of Kapisa north of Kabul, over the next two years.

“We need to agree on a concerted approach to progressively transfer responsibility to Afghan authorities in the provinces and districts that are stable,” he said.

Military sources have said global leaders are likely to agree on a package of measures, including civilian aid, more funds and personnel for police training programs as well as troops increases, when they meet in London on January 28.

Sarkozy did not give any details in his speech but announced he wanted to speed up training of the Afghan police and army.

“France will remain involved as long as it is necessary and the Afghan people wishes it,” he said.

“But when the allies and Afghans have succeeded, we have to concentrate our efforts where they are needed.”

LA CHATRE, France (Reuters) – Amid the flat, wide fields of central France, a team of re-trained secretaries and IT experts is packaging Europe’s literary heritage for the digital era.

Put less grandly, they turn pages for a living.

The company they work for, Safig, is one of the few European firms to digitize books, using automatic and human page-turners. That places them right at the center of France’s plan for a massive online library, and its attempts to negotiate a digital books deal with U.S. internet giant Google.

“We are in a politically sensitive period,” said project leader Christophe Danna, referring to that process. “Whatever the outcome is, it will determine the future of the books market,” he told Reuters as he stood against a backdrop of quietly humming scanners and paper-shuffling robotic arms.

Fans of France’s 750 million euro ($1 billion) scheme to digitize its libraries and museums see it as a union of cultural pride and industrial strategy — Bruno Racine, head of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, is also a strategic advisor to NATO, the military alliance.

Skeptics point out that Google’s 10 million digitized books dwarf any French effort so far, such as Safig’s three-year contract to scan 300,000 books for the Bibliotheque Nationale.

One possible outcome is a compromise with Google that would accelerate mass digitization.

PARIS (Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday that he favored a parliamentary vote on the potential ban of full Islamic veils in France that would be followed by legal steps after regional elections in 2010.

Sarkozy also said he would await the conclusions of a French parliamentary commission’s proposal to ban full Islamic veils, called the burqa or the niqab, from public places.

“We should seek a solution that allows us to secure the greatest support possible,” said Sarkozy after declaring that the full veil “was not welcome in France.”

“This is what the parliamentary commission has been working on for several months. As president of the republic, I think that it is wise to await the fruit of these consultations and reflections before deciding definitively,” he told parliamentarians.

Only a few hundred women in France are believed to wear full veils, but the possibility of a ban has dominated public debate for months and caused a rift within Sarkozy’s UMP party.

The head of the parliamentary commission said on Wednesday the next step should be a law imposing the ban, but many lawmakers and activists have voiced skepticism at the prospect of police forcing women to lift their veils.

“We will talk about the idea of a law, about the need to take time to prepare it and to avoid stigmatization,” commission head and communist lawmaker Andre Gerin told French radio. The commission is expected to publish its findings on January 26 or 27.

PARIS, Jan 12 (Reuters) – France wants to start a digital book exchange with Internet giant Google <GOOG.O> to solve a spat over online publication of the world’s literary heritage, according to a government report published on Tuesday.

The report, commissioned by France’s Culture Ministry, is the latest in a slew of Web policy initiatives that has at times pitted the government against private companies, including a proposed tax on online advertising [ID:nLDE606229].

The report said the proposed swap would be mutually beneficial, but unlike other comparable deals would not carry any exclusivity clauses in favour of Google.

“French books would be referenced by Google Books, while the national platform would benefit from works already digitised by Google, especially those provided by foreign libraries,” said the report, which was published on the ministry’s website.

In an interview with newspaper Le Monde, Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand praised the idea and said if Google was not interested, France could approach other private operators.

Several libraries around the world have struck partnerships with Google. Others are waiting for legal tussles over the digital use of copyrighted books to be resolved before considering a deal.

While the report said Google’s project had given a “decisive impulse” to dreams of a global online library, it criticised existing accords as being too generous to the firm.

PARIS (Reuters) – Iran’s rulers cannot stop mass protests even if they arrest opposition leaders because the movement has gathered too much momentum, campaigner and film-maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf told Reuters.

Some Iranian hardliners have urged the judiciary to arrest senior opposition figures such as Mirhossein Mousavi, whom Makhmalbaf supports. But the director, who made the 2001 hit “Kandahar,” said the threats were empty and would not work.

“Who are main leaders of the movement? It’s the young generation. In each alley, in each street, you will see one smart youth lead 10 others,” Makhmalbaf told Reuters at his home in Paris, between taking phone calls from fellow activists.

“We have some famous people everywhere, but even if the government kills all of them, this movement will continue.”

He said while Mousavi was severely limited in his work after the arrest of his closest aides in Iran, his mere presence as a symbol of the opposition movement was encouraging others.

Iran has been rocked by protests since a disputed election last June that gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term. The government has denied opposition allegations of fraud and accuses foreign-backed forces of trying to topple the state.

Since the contested vote, Makhmalbaf and his family have been campaigning full-time for Mousavi and the pro-democracy movement, spreading information inside and outside Iran through websites, Skype video calls and over the phone.

PARIS, Jan 7 (Reuters) – France could start taxing Internet advertising revenue from online companies such as Google Inc <GOOG.O>, using the funds to support creative industries that have been hit by the digital revolution, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

The proposal, put forward in a government-commissioned survey, is France’s latest challenge to the virtual free-for-all for Internet content.

Google said in a statement late on Thursday that it does not believe an additional tax on Internet advertising is the way forward.

France has caused controversy in the past by introducing some of the world’s harshest laws against online piracy.

The tax, which would also apply to other operators such as MSN and Yahoo, would put an end to “enrichment without any limit or compensation,” newspaper Liberation quoted Guillaume Cerutti, one of the authors of the report, as saying.

It would apply even if the operator had its offices outside France, as long as the Internet users who click on ads or sponsored links are in France, the paper said.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has repeatedly tried to present himself as a defender of France’s cultural heritage in the digital age, most recently calling for public projects to rival Google’s plans for a massive online library.

PARIS (Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday that he wanted the authorities to explore whether online advertising revenues of major search engines could be taxed in France as well as their home countries.

Speaking to leaders and representatives of the arts and entertainment sector, he also said he wanted the country’s antitrust body to rule on whether Google enjoys a dominant market position in online advertising.

“For the time being, these companies are taxed in the country in which they are headquartered even though they make up a big part of our advertising market,” he said.

Sarkozy’s comments followed a media report saying France could start taxing Internet advertising revenues from online giants such as Google, using the funds to support creative industries that have been hit by the digital revolution.

The proposal, put forward in a government-commissioned survey, is France’s latest challenge to the virtual free-for-all for Internet content.

The country has caused controversy in the past with some of the world’s harshest laws on online piracy.

The levy, which would also apply to other operators such as MSN and Yahoo, would put an end to “enrichment without any limit or compensation,” Liberation quoted Guillaume Cerutti, one of the authors of the report, as saying.

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s government wants to salvage a carbon tax, scrapped on constitutional concerns, by closing loopholes for some businesses, Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said on Thursday.

The French Constitutional Council annulled the tax, hailed by President Nicolas Sarkozy as a ground-breaking tool to fight climate change, on Tuesday on the grounds that it offered too many exemptions.

After the Constitutional Council complained that some 93 percent of industrial emissions were exempt from the tax, Lagarde told French radio this would change in a reworked version to be presented next year.

“We are going to review the law for industrial sectors that are already part of the market for emission quotas,” she said on RTL radio. Such businesses were previously given a free ride.

The law’s many loopholes were needed to win over critics who feared business competitiveness, people in rural areas and workers whose livelihood depended on cars or boats would be unfairly punished.

Others accused the government of inventing new taxes to bolster depleted public finances.

France’s politically influential farmers and fishermen in particular were granted tax relief under the law, and Lagarde promised they would keep that special status after the revision.

PARIS (Reuters) – Eurostar trains between Britain and France will start running again on Tuesday, the company said on Monday, blaming powdery snow for a series of breakdowns that stranded thousands and infuriated the French government.

Eurostar, owned by the French and Belgian state railway firms and by Britain, canceled all services on Monday for the third day in a row after some 2,500 people were trapped on trains inside the Channel Tunnel for up to 16 hours on Saturday.

France’s government doubted the cold was the sole reason and ordered an investigation, while President Nicolas Sarkozy summoned Guillaume Pepy, who heads both Eurostar and French railway operator SNCF, for an explanation.

Eurostar Chief Operating Officer Nicolas Petrovic blamed “very light, powdery snow” of a type normally found in mountains rather than in the plains of northern France for the chaos. The company has commissioned an independent inquiry.

He said the snow had got into the trains so that when they entered the much warmer tunnel, the snow melted and caused condensation that affected the electrical power systems.

“It’s the first time we have these snow conditions in this place in 15 years,” Petrovic told a delayed news conference at the Eurostar terminal at the Gare du Nord station in Paris.

Eurostar hopes to run two out of three services on Tuesday after satisfactory tests on modified trains on Monday, but Petrovic encouraged stranded passengers to try to find other ways home if they could, saying Eurostar would cover the cost.