.Hurricane-force winds, surging seas and driving rain have lashed western Europe, leaving at least 13 people dead and more than a million households without power.
Dubbed “Xynthia”, the Atlantic storm crashed against the western coasts of France and Spain, bringing with it a band of foul weather stretching from Portugal to the Netherlands.
Britain, already suffering localised flooding from a previous weather system, braced for more weather misery.
“We have confirmed five deaths in the area of La-Faute-sue-Mer and l’Aiguillon-sur-Mer,” Herve Rose, a government spokesperson in the low-lying Vendee region, where flood waters in some coastal towns reached 1.
Gusts of up to 150 kilometres per hour and eight metre waves battered the northern and western coasts of France, flooding inland and sending residents scurrying onto rooftops.
Separately, an 88-year-old woman was found drowned in her home on the island of Oleron in Charentes-Maritime further south, police said.5 metres, said.
Two more bodies, that of a 10-year-old boy and of a pensioner, were found in Charentes-Maritime, a regional official said.
In Spain, regional authorities said that two men aged 51 and 41 died when the car they were travelling in was hit by a falling tree.
French authorities had said on Saturday that a man was killed by a falling tree in the Pyrenees mountains.
Portugal said on Saturday that a 10-year-old boy was killed by a falling branch in the north-west of the country. An 82-year-old woman was killed on Saturday when a wall collapsed in the Galicia region.
– Flights cancelled –
Air France announced that 70 flights out of 700 were cancelled from its hub at Paris Charles de Gaulle, as chaos gripped transport networks across western Europe at the end of French school’s half-term break.
In France, fallen powerlines caused blackouts for around a million homes across a 500 kilometre swathe of the country from the Brittany peninsula to the highlands of the Massif Central.
A major road crossing between France and Spain was closed to heavy goods vehicles, causing a 1,200-vehicle tail back of seven-tonne trucks on the French side of the Pyrenees.
A major road crossing between France and Spain was closed to heavy goods vehicles, causing a 1,200-vehicle tail back of seven-tonne trucks on the French side of the Pyrenees.
The storm developed in the Atlantic off the Portuguese island of Madeira, still reeling from the flash floods sparked by heavy rains that wrecked the centre of the capital Funchal and killed 42 people a week ago.
A hurricane is defined as a storm with winds consistently above 118 kilometres per hour.
The storm swept north-east into north-western Spain late on Saturday afternoon, where wind gusts reached 147 kph and some 27,000 households were without electricity, regional authorities said.
Powerful winds and heavy rain hit Spain’s Canary Islands archipelago late on Friday, with gusts of up to 128 kilometres per hour reported. .
Rail services were cancelled in Galicia as well as in the northern regions of Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country and parts of Castilla y Leon, where the storm left some 63,000 households without power.
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“This is a very deep, very intense and very fast-moving storm,” Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said, warning people to avoid using their cars and taking mountain or sea walks
.A French parliament report called for a ban on the full Islamic veil in all schools, hospitals, public transport and government offices, saying the burqa was an affront to French values.
“The wearing of the full veil is a challenge to our republic. “We must condemn this excess. .
The commission called on parliament to adopt a formal resolution stating that the burqa was “contrary to the values of the republic” and proclaiming that “all of France is saying ‘no’ to the full veil.”
After six months of hearings, the panel of 32 lawmakers recommended a ban on the face-covering veil in all state-run institutions and offices, the broadest move yet to restrict Muslim dress in France.
The panel however stopped short of proposing broad legislation to outlaw the burqa on the streets or in shopping centres after cautioning that such a move would have to be reviewed by the courts to establish its legality.”
Women who turn up at government offices wearing the full veil should be denied services such as a work visa, residency papers or French citizenship, the report recommended.
“There are scandalous practices hidden behind this veil,” said Mr Gerin who vowed to fight the “gurus” seeking to export a racial brand of fundamentalism and sectarianism to France.
“The wearing of the full veil is the tip of the iceberg,” said communist lawmaker Andre Gerin, the chair of the commission.
President Nicolas Sarkozy set the tone for the debate in June when he declared the burqa “not welcome” in France and described it as a symbol of women’s “subservience” that cannot be tolerated in a country that considers itself a human rights leader.
Home to Europe’s biggest Muslim minority, estimated at about six million, France is being closely watched at a time of particular unease over Islam, three months after Swiss voters approved a ban on minarets.
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.Stade Francais prop David Attoub has appealed against his 70-week ban for gouging in a Heineken Cup match against Ulster the previous month, competition organisers said overnight.
“David Attoub has today lodged an appeal against both the finding of foul play and level of sanction imposed by an independent disciplinary hearing last Tuesday,” said a statement posted on the ERC website.”
The 28-year-old, who played for France in 2006, was suspended for gouging flanker Stephen Ferris’s eyes in an ill-tempered game won 23-13 by Ulster in Belfast.
“The independent appeal committee will be appointed as soon as practicable.
“This is the worst act of contact with the eyes I have had to deal with,” judge Jeff Blackett said in a statement posted on the ERC website at the time. .
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.An Imam in Paris has given his support for a law against full-face veils and burqas in France. .
The report will be handed to the national assembly on Tuesday after which the French Government is likely to pass a law banning clothing that covers the face while they are in public.
Hassen Chalghoumi, who heads a mosque in a northern suburb of Paris, said women who wanted to cover their faces should move to Saudi Arabia or other Muslim countries where that was a tradition.
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President Nicolas Sarkozy supports a ban calling the veils an affront to women’s dignity
.French captain Thierry Henry has escaped being punished for his infamous handball in the 2010 World Cup finals play-off against Ireland, FIFA announced.
France was losing 1-0 to Ireland at the Stade de France on November 18, having won the first leg 1-0, when Henry teed up William Gallas in extra-time for what proved to be the decisive goal after illegally controlling the ball with his hand.
“On December 2, 2009, the FIFA executive committee asked the FIFA disciplinary committee to analyse the handling offence committed by Thierry Henry during the France v Republic of Ireland match on November 18, 2009, and to consider the possible disciplinary consequences,” read the statement from the committee.
FIFA’s disciplinary committee said, however, that they were powerless to punish the 1998 World Cup-winning striker because their rules forbade them to do so if the original misdemeanour had not been seen by the match officials.
“There is no other legal text that would allow the committee to impose sanctions for any incidents missed by match officials.
“At its meeting on January 18, 2010 , the disciplinary committee reached the conclusion that there was no legal foundation for the committee to consider the case because handling the ball cannot be regarded as a serious infringement as stipulated in article 77(a) of the FIFA disciplinary code.
“Thierry Henry not being punished is not astonishing, it is logical,” he said.”
Bernard Escalettes, president of the French Football Federation (FFF), said he hoped this finally drew a line under the episode.
“I hope that this is the end of the story, I hope so with all my heart.
“There is nothing in the FIFA rules permitting a punishment, and FIFA are bound by their rules.
“I had a phone conversation with Thierry Henry,” said Blatter at the time.”
The meeting of the 21-man disciplinary panel, an independent body chaired by the Swiss Marcel Mathier, was announced by FIFA president Sepp Blatter in Cape Town on December 2 following an extraordinary executive committee meeting. It was a conversation between sportsmen.
“We didn’t talk about guilty or not guilty.”
Blatter’s diplomacy can be explained by the lack of precedent regarding retrospective punishments meted out to players. I didn’t say that he would be punished, I said he’d be the subject of an investigation.
Blatter, meanwhile, has raised the possibility of awarding “moral compensation” to the Irish team.
Any punishment meted out would have been purely a symbolic one as FIFA’s rules do not explicitly address incidents of such a nature and a heavy punishment would have created an unwelcome precedent for world football’s governing body. .
“That could be a special trophy or a prize, we’ll have to see,” he said
.The niece of a British government minister went on trial Monday in Versailles, accused of murdering a young Frenchman by slitting his throat after she picked him up in a bar.
Jessica Davies contacted police in the early hours of a Sunday in November 2007 to say she had stabbed the 24-year-old man at her apartment in the chic Saint-Germain-en-Laye suburb west of Paris, judicial officials said.
Davies, who is being held in Versailles women’s prison, claimed to remember nothing of the stabbing, only that she had met Olivier Mugnier in an Irish pub close to her flat a few hours before his death.
Police found the now 30-year-old niece of Britain’s multi-millionaire junior defence minister Quentin Davies so drunk that she could not be brought before a judge until the evening, sources said at the time. .
The trial by jury is expected to last two days, with a verdict likely on Tuesday.
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.Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has taken a break from the rough and tumble of Italian politics, shopping for nudes on the French riviera. .
Art gallery spokesman Loic Deltour described the works as “sensual nudes” worth “several tens of thousands of euros”.
Witnesses said security was visibly tight around Mr Berlusconi during his shopping trip.
The billionaire media magnate, 73, has been mostly out of the public eye since December 13, when a man, said to have a long history of psychiatric troubles, hit him in the face with a miniature model of Milan cathedral.
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.France captain Thierry Henry, the central figure of this week’s handball controversy, has agreed a replay against Ireland would be the fairest solution to the controversy surrounding the teams’ World Cup play-off.
But the French Football Federation has thrown out that suggestion, after the Football Association of Ireland again lobbied FIFA after its initial replay request was rejected.
The striker handled the ball in the build-up to William Gallas’s goal in the 1-1 second-leg draw in Paris, earning France a 2-1 aggregate win and sending it through to next year’s finals in South Africa.
“Of course, the fairest solution would be to replay the game but it is not in my control.
“Naturally I feel embarrassed at the way we won and feel extremely sorry for the Irish who definitely deserve to be in South Africa,” Henry said in a statement.
The FAI reacted to Henry’s statement by reiterating its request for FIFA to sanction a replay.”
Henry’s statement was issued after world football’s governing body FIFA rejected an FAI appeal to replay the match.
But the French Football Federation was quick to scotch any such talk, while expressing its sympathy with Ireland. The federation never sought to deny the refereeing error which saw the equalising French goal allowed,” it said in a statement.
“The FFF understands the disappointment and bitterness of the Irish players, management and supporters.”
Henry said while he admitted the ball struck his hand, he was not a cheat.
“At the end of the match and because French football itself has suffered in the past by events of a similar nature, the FFF management expressed their regrets and sympathy to their Irish counterparts.
“I am not a cheat and never have been,” said Henry.
“There is little more I can do apart from admit the ball had contact with my hand leading up to our equalising goal and I feel very sorry for the Irish,” he said. “It was an instinctive reaction to a ball that was coming extremely fast in a crowded penalty area. “It was an instinctive reaction to a ball that was coming extremely fast in a crowded penalty area.”
Best interests
Irish captain Robbie Keane, who scored his team’s goal in Paris, responded by issuing his own statement. I told the Irish players, the referee and the media this after the game.
“As captain of the French team, to make such a statement took courage and honour, and all of us recognise that.
“On behalf of the Republic of Ireland players, I would like to thank Thierry Henry for his statement,” he said.
“We can only hope that the French Football Federation might accept the wishes of both captains in the best interests of the game.
“As captain of the Republic of Ireland team, I would also be happy for a replay to happen in the interest of fair play so that whichever team qualifies, can do so with their heads held high..”
The FAI board met on Friday and issued a statement saying said it had called on the French federation to “join with it and the captains of the French and Irish teams. to request a replay from FIFA that would protect the integrity of the game worldwide and the pride of the French national team”..
Win properly
Arsene Wenger, Henry’s former manager at Arsenal, agreed that a replay would be the fairest solution.
Win properly
Arsene Wenger, Henry’s former manager at Arsenal, agreed that a replay would be the fairest solution.
“France has to say ‘yes it was a handball and we offer a replay’,” he said. “It is embarrassing to qualify the way we qualified. We want to beat Ireland properly and that didn’t happen.”
Wenger, who agreed to replay an FA Cup tie against Sheffield United in 1999 over an issue of fair play added:
“Thierry Henry is not the problem. He played here for 10 years and has always been super fair. .
“Football and sport in general is full of heroes who have cheated 10 times more than Thierry.
“A player of his stature has a massive pressure on his shoulders and if somebody has to do something for Thierry, it is French football and France as a country, not to leave him out there alone against the whole world.”
Wenger, echoing the comments of many managers on Friday, maintained that the use of technology was the way forward.
“The biggest anger for me is that we are still in 2009, sitting here where millions of people see what happened, one guy doesn’t see it and we can’t help him,” he said.
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.France has closed in on the World Cup finals, while fellow star-studded giant Portugal struggled for a 1-0 home victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina on a night of tense, first-leg play-off ties. .
Chelsea striker Anelka struck the vital away goal with 18 minutes left at Croke Park, with his shot taking a wicked deflection off Sean St Ledger and past Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given.
In Lisbon, Portugal, the 2006 semi-finalist but playing without the injured Cristiano Ronaldo, struggled to a win over Bosnia Herzegovina.
Ireland had wasted a golden opportunity in the first half when Liam Lawrence missed the target from just eight yards.
Porto defender Bruno Alves was on target with a powerful backpost header after 31 minutes for the game’s only goal.
It could have been a black night for the Portuguese, who were saved by the woodwork on three occasions, including twice in the last minute.
But Senijad Ibricic crashed a header against the crossbar, before a dramatic final minute which saw Bosnian striker Edin Dzeko’s far-post header come off the crossbar while Zlatan Muslimovic’s follow-up volley came off the post.
Despite losing 2-1 to Russia in Moscow, Nejc Pecnik’s goal two minutes from time gave Slovenia hope it they can make sure of a second World Cup appearance in the return leg.
Meanwhile, unheralded Slovenia and Ukraine took tentative steps closer to finals.
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Ukraine, a quarter-finalist in 2006, will also be confident of achieving back-to-back World Cup spots, after holding 2004 European champions Greece to a scoreless draw in Athens
.France has comprehensively outmuscled world champion South Africa 20-13 to continue its 12-year home run of victories over the recently crowned Tri-Nations winners. .
Julien Dupuy kicked four penalites from six and Morgan Parra one, with winger Vincent Clerc bagging a try for the home side.
The Springboks repeatedly paid the price for ill-discipline, Morne Steyn and Ryan Kankowski both sin-binned as referee Wayne Barnes cracked down on collapsing the rolling maul and rucks.
“Everyone said you can’t play the Boks at their own game, in the same physical way,” France coach Marc Lievremont said.
Morne Steyn hit a penalty and drop-goal as well as converting an opportunist’s try by South African captain John Smit. We won the contest and had the extra physical edge to win the game.
“But we did.”
South Africa coach Peter de Villiers said: “You can’t play the game without the ball.
“It’s very satisfying. They were the strongest side.
“They won the contest on the floor and we lost too much ball in contact.
But Dupuy and Damien Traille both failed to find their range with box kicks into a strong wind, to grant a flustered-examining Boks side some relief.”
The French matched the physicality offered by the Springboks in the opening quarter, young centre pairing Yann David and Maxime Mermoz resulting in the visiting midfield some problems, with flanker Imanol Harinordoquy and hooker William Servat prominent around the field.
France: V Clerc try, J Dupuy 4 penalties, M Parra penalty
South Africa: J Smit try; M Steyn conversion, penalty, drop goal
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South Africa’s famed second row pairing of Bakkies Botha and Victor Matfield had a torrid opening 20 minutes, the former conceding the first penalty, while both had to temporarily leave the field after heavy knocks to the head