PARIS: At least seven people reportedly have been killed and dozens injured in a train derailment outside Paris.

A spokesman for the SNCF, the country’s national rail company, told Reuters the train was transporting passengers from Paris to Limoges when it derailed near Bretigny-sur-Orge, about 20 miles south of Paris during the height of Friday’s rush hour.

The train was reportedly carrying 350 passengers, and there were reports that it split in two as it was coming into the station. French transportation officials had reportedly declared a “code red”—meaning an accident in which “many people are victims.”

France 24, citing local media reports, said that passengers remained trapped on the train and that some victims had been electrocuted and crushed. There were conflicting reports as to exactly how many people had been killed.

“The death toll is evolving constantly at this point and unfortunately it will probably rise,” French Interior Minister Manuel Valls told Reuters. “At this stage there are seven people dead, several dozen wounded and some of them are serious.”

Several images posted on Le Monde showed several train cars toppled and crashed near the station.

Bolivia accused France, Italy, Spain and Portugal of blocking the plane.

It said some wrongly believed US fugitive Edward Snowden was on board.

Speaking in Berlin, French President Francois Hollande said he granted permission as soon as he knew it was Mr Morales’ plane.

President Morales was flying back to Bolivia from Moscow when the plane was forced to stop in Vienna.

Angry reactions

The French foreign ministry issued a statement on the incident.

Ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said: “The foreign minister called his Bolivian counterpart to tell him about France’s regrets after the incident caused by the late confirmation of permission for President Morales’ plane to fly over [French] territory.”

The episode sparked angry reactions from heads of state across Latin America.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner referred to “not only the humiliation of a sister country, but of the South American continent”.
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro said on Twitter: “I reaffirm all our solidarity with Evo [Morales] and from Venezuela, with dignity, we will respond to this dangerous, disproportionate, and unacceptable aggression”
Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa tweeted: “We express our solidarity with Evo [Morales] and the brave Bolivian people.”
A statement by Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff said: “The embarrassment to President Morales hits not only Bolivia, but all of Latin America.”
Demonstrators marched on the French embassy in La Paz, burning the French flag and demanding the expulsion of the ambassador to Bolivia.

President Correa asked that the Unasur group of South American nations call an urgent meeting over the matter.

The secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), Jose Miguel Insulza, expressed his “deep displeasure” with the “lack of respect” shown by the countries that denied airspace to Mr Morales’ jet.

Bolivia’s Vice-President Alvaro Garcia said a group of Latin American leaders would meet in Cochabamba, Bolivia, on Thursday over the case.

PARIS: Tens of thousands of supporters of leftist parties marched through central Paris on Sunday to express disappointment with President Francois Hollande’s first year in power, criticizing the leader for reneging on his promises to rein in the world of finance and enact economic stimulus.

Hollande, a Socialist, rose to the presidency last May, promising to spare France the austerity measures imposed elsewhere in Europe. And the French government has largely avoided the deep spending cuts, big tax hikes and the wide-ranging reforms of many of its neighbors.

Instead, it has nibbled around the edges of its deficit, cutting 10 billion euros ($13 billion) in spending and increasing taxes, largely on the rich, by 20 billion euros. That’s relatively little for a country with 2 trillion euro economy of which 57 percent is government spending.

Still, France’s economy has continued to deteriorate, with growth stagnating and unemployment rising above 10 percent.

Leftists who took the streets on Sunday — largely from parties to the left of Hollande’s mainstream Socialist Party — rejected the notion that Hollande had spared France a worse fate.

“Salaries are frozen. They continue to reduce hiring in the public sector,” said Brigitte Blang, a 64-year-old teacher from eastern France. “We’re waiting for true leftist policies. There’s money in the coffers!”

Blang was among tens of thousands of people from around the country who gathered around Paris’ iconic Place de la Bastille, named for the prison stormed by French revolutionaries in 1789. They carried signs that said, “Down with austerity,” ”Out with finance, humans first” and “OUSTerity — finance should pay.”

Paris police said 30,000 people showed up, although protest organizers said there were 180,000. After speeches, the crowd marched to another Paris square.

Several protesters acknowledged that they voted for Hollande a year ago — either simply to ensure the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy’s defeat or because they had hope for his leadership.

Hollande’s failure to keep the support of those on the far left protesting in Paris on Sunday while also angering the right —who think his economic reforms and budget cuts haven’t gone far enough — has made him one the least popular presidents in modern French history. In a sign of how he is being squeezed from both sides, police said 15,000 people — largely right-leaning — gathered in another part of Paris on Sunday to protest the recent passage of a law legalizing gay marriage.

Hollande and his ministers have pleaded for more time to allow their policies to take hold.

On the one hand, France’s reluctance to enact major budget cuts may seem prescient to some as many economists and politicians in Europe rethink the austerity programs demanded in exchange for bailouts. The effects of budget cuts and tax increases have been much more detrimental to growth than some expected, and the prolonged recession and high unemployment in many countries has begun to make those policies untenable.

But others note that France hasn’t just shied away from budget cuts, it has also skimped on reforms. While Spain and Italy may be struggling more than France currently, both countries are also laying the groundwork for a strong, durable recovery, many economists say.

France, on the other hand, may be left behind when the rebound comes since it has only partially committed to labor market reforms. Many of its companies are still not competitive on the world stage, its government spending is still too high and Hollande’s administration has only exacerbated the impression that France is a difficult place to do business. One of his ministers has had very public spats with Goodyear, ArcelorMittal and Yahoo in the past year.

Hollande has been trying to turn that reputation around, recently unveiling a raft of tax cuts for entrepreneurs. But that announcement is a good example of the bind he finds himself in: Those very tax cuts were held up as a call to arms for Sunday’s protest. And many deplored what they see as a stranglehold on power exercised by big companies and banks.

“Our march … is a protest against the coup d’etat of the world of finance that is happening throughout Europe,” said Jean-Luc Melenchon, the head of a grouping of leftist political parties known as the Left Front.

French President Francois Hollande says he wants a new law that could extend restrictions against wearing of prominent religious symbols in state jobs into the private sector. It comes amid a political backlash after a top court ruled that a day care operator that gets some state funding unfairly fired a woman in a headscarf.

Kaddour was on hand in Le Bourget, north of Paris, for the four-day Annual Meeting of Muslims ofFrance that ends Monday. The conference last year drew 160,000 faithful and is billed as the largest gathering of its kind in Europe.

PARIS: The Eiffel Tower was evacuated Saturday night after an anonymous caller phoned in abomb threat, police said.

Nearly 1,400 people were sent away from the tourist attraction following a request from tower operators after the warning, a Paris police official said. Police then searched the monument with sniffer dogs, and set up a security perimeter.

No explosives were found and the site was to be reopened, the official said on condition of anonymity because she wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

French authorities have stepped up counterterrorism measures in recent weeks amid heightened concern about threats to France over its military campaign against al-Qaida-linked fighters in Mali which began more than two months ago.

The tower is occasionally evacuated because of such warnings — at least once last year and twice in 2011. The 324-meter (1,063-foot) tower is one of the world’s top tourist attractions, with millions of visitors a year.

PARIS: Paris police used tear gas and batons to fight crowds who pushed their way onto the landmark Champs-Elysees avenue and toward the presidential palace as part of a huge protest against a draft law allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt children.

Hundreds of thousands of people — conservative activists, schoolchildren with their parents, retirees, priests — converged on the capital Sunday in a last-ditch bid to stop the bill, many bused in from the French provinces.

The violence took protesters and police by surprise, and suggested that the anti-gay marriage protests have become outlets for anger and disappointment in the presidency of Francois Hollande’s presidency.

The lower house of France’s parliament approved the “marriage for everyone” bill last month with a large majority, and it’s facing a vote in the Senate next month. Both houses are dominated by Hollande’s Socialist Party and its allies.

Sustained protests led by opposition conservatives in this traditionally Catholic country have eroded support for the draft law in recent months, and organizers hope Sunday’s march will swing the Senate debate against it.

The first few hours of the protest were peaceful. But as it was meant to be winding down, about 100 youths tried to push past police barricades onto the Champs-Elysees, a tree-lined avenue that cuts through central Paris and draws throngs of tourists daily. In an indication of the sensitivity of the issue, protesters had been barred from marching on the Champs.

Police officers wrangled with the youths, some with shaven heads and others wearing hoods or masks, and fired tear gas to force them back. Gaining momentum, more and more protesters took side streets to reach the avenue, blocking a key intersection — and some made it within 100 meters (yards) from the grounds of the president’s Elysee Palace.

Police fired more tear gas, primarily at aggressive youths at the front of the crowd. Protesters of all ages were among those coughing and clutching their stinging eyes.

“Hollande, Resignation!” they chanted, before breaking into the French anthem, “La Marseillaise.”

When Hollande took office in May, most voters supported the idea of gay marriage and few expected it to face much of a challenge. But disillusionment with the president’s failure to stem rising unemployment or revive the economy — a much bigger concern for the French — have fueled resentment at the “marriage for everyone” bill.

An official with the Paris police headquarters said two people were arrested and no injuries were reported in Sunday’s clashes. The police official was not authorized to be publicly named in accordance with police policy.

The official estimated that 300,000 people took part in Sunday’s march, slightly less than a similar march in January. Organizers estimated some 1.4 million people took part in Sunday’s march, more than in the January protest.

Polls indicate a shrinking majority of French voters back gay marriage, which is legal in about a dozen mostly European nations and some U.S. states. But polls show French voters are less enthusiastic about adoption by same-sex couples.

Frigide Barjot, the stage name of an activist who has led protests against the bill, insisted the anti-gay marriage movement wasn’t a lost cause, declaring: “It’s the second round, sir. It’s not the last battle.”

The French president will be on a two-day visit to the Indian capital and Mumbai starting February 14 to press upon the speedy conclusion of negotiations for the purchase of 126 medium multi- role combat aircraft (MMRCA), a deal worth well over 10 billion U. S. dollars, ‘The Times of India’ newspaper reported, quoting sources.

During Hollande’s visit, the two sides may also discuss the modalities of the final commercial agreement with nuclear giant Areva to build European Pressurized Reactors in India.

However, there has been no official announcement from India about the visit yet.

SEVARE, Mali: French and Malian forces pushed toward the fabled desert town of Timbuktu on Sunday, as the two-week-long French mission gathered momentum against the Islamist extremists who have ruled the north for more than nine months.
So far the French forces have met little resistance from the militants, though it remains unclear what battles may await them farther north. The Malian military blocked dozens of international journalists from trying to travel toward Timbuktu.
Lt. Col. Diarran Kone, a spokesman for Mali’s defense minister, declined to give details Sunday about the advance on Timbuktu, citing the security of an ongoing military operation.
Timbuktu’s mayor, Ousmane Halle, is in the capital, Bamako, and he told The Associated Press he had no information about the remote town, where phone lines have been cut for days.
A convoy of about 15 vehicles transporting international journalists also was blocked Sunday afternoon in Konna, some 186 miles (300 kilometers) south of Timbuktu.
The move on Timbuktu comes a day after the French announced they had seized the airport and a key bridge in Gao, one of the other northern provincial capitals under the grip of radical Islamists.
“People were coming out into the streets to greet the arrival of the troops and celebrate,” said Hassane Maiga, a resident of Gao. “At night, youth from Gao went out alongside the Malian military. They scoured homes in search of the Islamists and the youth smashed the houses.”
French and Malian forces were patrolling Gao Sunday afternoon searching for remnants of the Islamists and maintaining control of the bridge and airport, said Kone, the Mali military spokesman.
The French special forces, which had stormed in by land and by air, had come under fire in Gao from “several terrorist elements” that were later “destroyed,” the French military said in a statement on its website Saturday.
In a later press release entitled “French and Malian troops liberate Gao,” the French ministry of defense said they brought back the town’s mayor, Sadou Diallo, who had fled to Bamako.
However, a Gao official interviewed by telephone by The Associated Press said late Saturday that coalition forces so far only controlled the airport, the bridge and surrounding neighborhoods. And in Paris, a defense ministry official clarified that the city had not been fully liberated, and that the process of freeing Gao was continuing.
Both officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Gao, the largest city in northern Mali, was seized by a mixture of al-Qaida-linked Islamist fighters more than nine months ago along with the other northern provincial capitals of Kidal and Timbuktu.
The rebel group that turned Gao into a replica of Afghanistan under the Taliban has close ties to Moktar Belmoktar, the Algerian national who has long operated in Mali and who last week claimed responsibility for the terror attack on a BP-operated natural gas plant in Algeria.
His fighters are believed to include Algerians, Egyptians, Mauritanians, Libyans, Tunisians, Pakistanis and even Afghans.
Since France began its military operation, the Islamists have retreated from three small towns in central Mali: Diabaly, Konna and Douentza. However, the Islamists still control much of the north, including Kidal.
The Pentagon said late Saturday that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told France the United States will aid the French military with aerial refueling missions.
U.S. aerial refueling planes would be a boost to air support for French ground forces as they enter vast areas of northern Mali, which is the size of Texas, that are controlled by al-Qaida-linked extremists.
The U.S. was already helping France by transporting French troops and equipment to the West African nation. However, the U.S. government has said it cannot provide direct aid to the Malian military because the country’s democratically elected president was overthrown in a coup last March.
The Malian forces, however, are now expected to get more help than initially promised from neighboring nations.
Col. Shehu Usman Abdulkadir, a Nigerian in charge of regional forces heading to Mali, told The Associated Press that the African force will be expanded from an anticipated 3,200 troops to some 5,700 — a figure that does not include the 2,200 soldiers promised by Chad.
Most analysts had said the earlier figure was far too small to confront the Islamists given the huge territory they hold.

France, warning that Islamist control over Mali’s vast deserts and rugged mountains threatened the security of Africa and the West, had targeted Diabaly in an eighth day of air strikes to dislodge hardened al Qaeda-linked fighters there.
“They (the Islamists) fled the town, dressed as civilians, early this morning. They abandoned their weapons and ammunition,” a Malian military source said.
The source said government soldiers had not yet entered the town but Diabaly Mayor Oumar Diakite told Reuters that troops were there carrying out mopping-up operations after a French air strike earlier in the day.
Diakite said residents had dug up some of the Islamist fighters’ weapons caches. “There are lots of burned-out vehicles that the Islamists tried to hide in the orchards,” he added.
A commander in the Malian army in nearby Markala said ground forces were operating around Diabaly, which lies about 360 km (220 miles) northeast of Bamako, but could not confirm that the town, seized by Islamists on Monday, had been recaptured.
French armed forces spokesman Thierry Burkhard said he was not aware of any operation in the area.
If officially confirmed, it would be a second military success for the French-led military alliance after Islamists on Thursday night abandoned Konna, to the north of the central garrison town of Sevare.
Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres has appealed for access to Konna but said it has so far been refused despite days of talks with all armed forces.
Bolstered with weapons seized from Libya after the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi, the Islamist alliance of al Qaeda’s North African wing AQIM and home-grown Malian groups Ansar Dine and MUJWA has put up staunch resistance.
The progress of French and Malian troops has been slowed also because insurgents had taken refuge in the homes of civilians, residents said.
The military operation is expected to force hundreds of thousands more people from their homes, on top of the 400,000 that have fled since a rebellion erupted last year.
French President Francois Hollande ordered the intervention on the grounds that the Islamists could turn northern Mali into a “terrorist state” radiating threats beyond its borders.
Residents in Markala, where the French have set up the forward base at an army camp overlooking the Niger River, said they were relieved to see French soldiers.
“The past few days have been very stressful before the arrival of the French troops,” said Mohamud Sangare, who runs a hardware store in the center of the town.
Despite threats from militants to attack French interests around the world, France, which now has 1,800 troops on the ground in Mali, has pledged to keep them there until stability returns to the poor, landlocked West African nation
In the first apparent retaliatory attack, al Qaeda-associated militants took dozens of foreigners hostage on Wednesday at a natural gas plant in Algeria, blaming Algerian cooperation with France.
Algerian security sources said that about 20 foreigners were still being held on Friday at the facility where some 30 hostages, along with at least 18 of their captors, were killed during a storming of the complex by Algerian armed forces on Thursday.
ECOWAS TROOPS POUR IN
A total of 2,500 French troops are expected in Mali but Paris is keen to swiftly hand the mission over to West Africa’s ECOWAS bloc, which in December secured a U.N. mandate for a 3,300-strong mission to help Mali recapture its north.
The first contingents of Togolese and Nigerian troops arrived in Bamako on Thursday. Nigerien and Chadian forces were massing in Niger, Mali’s neighbor to the east.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, in a letter to the Senate requesting approval to raise Nigerian’s force to 1,200 soldiers, said Mali was a threat to the whole of the region.
“The crisis in Mali, if not brought under control, may spill over to Nigeria and other West African countries with negative consequences on our collective security, political stability and development efforts,” he said. His request was approved.
The scrambling of the U.N.-mandated African mission, which previously had not been due to deploy until September, will hearten former colonial power France. With Chad promising 2,000 soldiers, African states have now pledged more than 5,000.
The head of Malian military operations, Colonel Didier Daco, said that Islamists were abandoning their 4×4 pick-up trucks, which made them vulnerable in the desert to French air strikes, to fight in the bush on foot.
Military experts say France and its African allies must now capitalize on a week of hard-hitting air strikes by seizing the initiative on the ground to prevent the insurgents from withdrawing into the remote desert and reorganizing.
“The more painful the militants can make the push into northern Mali and subsequent pacification effort, the more they can hope to turn French, Western and African public opinion against the intervention in the country,” global intelligence consultancy Stratfor wrote in a report on Friday.
MALIANS WELCOME FRENCH FORCES
With African states facing huge logistical and transport challenges, Germany promised two Transall military transport aircraft to help fly in their soldiers.
Britain has supplied two C-17 military transport planes to ferry in French armored vehicles and medical supplies. Spain’s government said it would provide a Hercules transport plane and dozens of instructors to help the Mali operation.
The United States is considering logistical and surveillance support but has ruled out dispatching U.S. troops.
Reuters journalists travelling north of Bamako saw residents welcoming French troops and, in places, French and Malian flags hung side by side. “Thank you France, thank you Francois Hollande,” read one national newspaper headline on Friday.
“They will do it. We’re confident that they will do it well,” said Bamako resident Omar Kamasoko. “They came a bit late, it’s true, but they came. We’re grateful and we’re behind him.”
Mali’s recent woes began with a coup in Bamako last March after two decades of stable democracy. In the ensuing chaos, Islamist forces seized large swathes of the north and imposed a severe rule reminiscent of Afghanistan under the Taliban.
The U.N. refugee agency said on Friday that refugees from northern Mali had given horrific accounts of amputations and executions, as well as the recruitment of child soldiers.
The agency said it expected 400,000 Malians to flee the fighting in coming months, placing great strain on the scant resources of the arid, impoverished Sahel region.
(Additional reporting by Adama Diarra in Bamako, Benkoro Sangare in Niono, Noel Tadegnon in Lome, Leigh Thomas in Paris, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and David Lewis in Dakar; Writing by Daniel Flynn and David Lewis; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

A contingent of around 100 Togolese troops landed in Bamako and was due to be joined by Nigerian forces already en route. Nigerien and Chadian forces were massing in Niger, Mali’s neighbor to the east.
The scrambling of the U.N.-mandated African mission, which previously had not been due for deployment until September, will be a boon for France, the former colonial power in Mali.
French troops, which had moved northwards from Bamako in an armored column on Tuesday, pinned down some Islamist fighters in the small town of Diabaly. But French forces held back from launching an all-out assault as the insurgents had taken refuge in the homes of civilians, residents said.
“The Islamists are still in Diabaly. They are very many of them. Every time they hear a plane overhead, they run into homes, traumatizing the people,” said one woman who fled the town with her three children overnight.
Residents in the town of Konna, to the north of the central garrison town of Sevare, said Islamists had fled as Malian soldiers backed by French troops deployed.
“Life is difficult for the people of northern Mali and the international community has the duty to help these people,” said Togolese Lieutenant Colonel Mawoute Bayassim Gnamkoulamba.
“That is why we think that it is necessary for us to protect Mali and we are proud today to fulfill that mission.”
French forces, numbering some 1,400 soldiers, began ground operations on Wednesday against an Islamist coalition grouping al Qaeda’s North African wing AQIM and the home-grown Ansar Dine and MUJWA militants.
President Francois Hollande ordered the intervention on the grounds that the Islamists who had taken over the poor West African country’s north could turn it into a “terrorist state” which would radiate a threat beyond its borders.
Hollande has pledged they will stay until stability returns to Mali but, in the first apparent retaliatory attack, al Qaeda-linked militants took dozens of foreigners hostage at a gas plant in Algeria, blaming Algerian cooperation with France.
A total of 2,500 French troops are expected in Mali but Paris is keen to swiftly hand the mission over to West Africa’s ECOWAS bloc, which in December secured a U.N. mandate for a 3,300-strong mission to help Mali recapture its north.
A rebel push into central Mali was last week halted by bombings by French aircraft and the deployment of ground troops.
A convoy of armored vehicles, fuel tankers and ambulances and around 200 soldiers from Mali’s eastern neighbor Niger was positioned at that eastern border, witnesses said.
A Reuters witness at the scene said heavy weapons fire rang out as troops tested artillery.
Communications with residents in Islamist-controlled towns have become more difficult as some mobile phone towers have stopped working. Residents said rebel fighters are suspicious of anyone using phones, fearing they are passing information to the enemy.
“There are no longer any police stations. (The Islamists) have dispersed across the city, mixing in with the population,” said Ibrahim Mamane, a resident from the town of Gao who reached the border with Niger.
“The population is ready and is waiting for the French forces with open arms. If they attack Gao, the people will fight the Islamists with their bare hands,” he added.
Reuters journalists travelling north of Bamako saw residents welcoming French troops and, in places, French and Malian flags hung side by side.
AFRICAN TALIBAN
Mali’s recent troubles began with a coup in Bamako last March, ending a period of stable rule that saw a series of elections. In the confusion that followed, Islamist forces seized large swathes of the north and imposed a strict rule reminiscent of Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Military experts say France and its African allies must now capitalize on a week of hard-hitting air strikes by seizing the initiative on the ground to prevent the insurgents from withdrawing into the desert and reorganizing.
“The whole world clearly needs to unite and do much more than is presently being done to contain terrorism,” Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said.
Diabaly is a country town with a population of about 35,000, about 360 km (220 miles) from Bamako and near the border with Mauritania, where AQIM has bases.
A spokesman for MUJWA confirmed that their positions in Diabaly had been fired on but said French forces had not penetrated the town itself.
Diabaly Mayor Salif Ouedrago, who fled on Wednesday, told Malian state radio: “There were deaths on the side of the jihadists. They buried their dead yesterday.”
Meanwhile, the Malian army rushed reinforcements to a town closer to Bamako on Thursday after Islamist fighters were spotted near the frontier with Mauritania.
“Banamba is in a state of alert. Reinforcements have been sent. Nigerian troops expected to arrive in Bamako today could be deployed there to secure the zone,” a senior Malian military source told Reuters.
An inhabitant of Banamba, 140 km (90 miles) from the capital, reported the arrival of soldiers after insurgents were seen in the Boron border area.
With African states facing huge logistical and transport challenges, Germany promised two Transall military transport planes to help fly in their soldiers.
Britain has supplied two C-17 military transport planes to ferry in French armored vehicles and medical supplies. The United States is considering logistical and surveillance support but has ruled out sending in U.S. troops.
(Additional reporting by Tiemoko Diallo and Adama Diarra in Bamako, Benkoro Sangare in Niono, Noel Tadegnon in Lome and David Lewis in Dakar; Writing by Daniel Flynn and David Lewis; Editing by Mark Heinrich)