Word: french
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...France is also keen to stress the E.U.'s mission neutrality. "It is a reconstruction mission, a development mission and a humanitarian one," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said, adding that that the aim was solely to protect displaced refugees, not to help Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno. Some Chadian rebels have expressed fears that the E.U. force is meant to help prop up Deby, a longtime ally of Paris, and have even threatened to attack the mission if it interferes with their rumbling insurgency...
...Irish Lieutenant General Pat Nash will command the operation from its headquarters near Paris. But the main impetus for the operation, and the dominant power behind it, is France - and a French brigadier general will take charge on the ground...
...French President Nicolas Sarkozy has indicated that he wants to loosen Paris's longstanding ties to African nations with dubious political credentials. He has also suggested he wants France to rejoin the NATO integrated military command that President Charles De Gaulle pulled out of in 1966. "Europeanizing" France's military presence in Africa is seen as helping Paris towards both those goals. Sarkozy says he wants to beef up the E.U. defense capacities, and having an E.U. mission in Chad is one way of encouraging that. He also says an independent E.U. defense capability is the price for France rejoining...
...court near Paris has ruled that six French aid workers convicted in Chad and sentenced to an eight-year prison for attempted kidnapping will serve that full jail term in France - though with no hard labor, which under French law is banned. The ruling brings the bizarre, at times tawdry saga of humanitarian assistance group Zoé's Ark to its legal conclusion, but emotions still run high: as the judgment was read out, relatives and friends of the six shook the courtroom with cries of protest and claims of political manipulation...
...bracing themselves for what they are likely to face during the coming days: A bruising reckoning with top government officials. Bank of France governor Christian Noyer has been summoned to appear at a Wednesday crisis hearing in the Senate. And officials for President Nicolas Sarkozy were quoted in French and British newspapers saying that the French leader was enraged that Société Générale executives had waited at least three days before telling him that they'd uncovered the giant fraud. Sarkozy had good reason for unhappiness. When the scandal broke late on Wednesday night...