Malian authorities will give French President Francois Hollande another camel after the one they gave him in thanks for helping repel Islamist rebels was killed and eaten by the family he left it with in Timbuktu, an official in Mali said.

A local government official in northern Mali said on Tuesday a replacement would be sent to France.

"As soon as we heard of this, we quickly replaced it with a bigger and better-looking camel," said the official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

"The new camel will be sent to Paris. We are ashamed of what happened to the camel. It was a present that did not deserve this fate."

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Hollande was presented with the camel when he visited Mali in February several weeks after dispatching French troops to the former colony to help combat al Qaeda-linked fighters moving south from a base in the north of the country.

 

The president joked at the time about using the camel to get around traffic-jammed Paris. But he chose in the end to leave it with a family in the town on the edge of the Sahara desert.

Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was tasked with giving Hollande regular updates on the camel's status and had to inform him of its death last week, French media said.

"The news came in from soldiers on the ground," said a French government official.

French leaders have received many gifts of exotic or wild animals from Africa and further afield over the years.

Last week, a robber chainsawed a tusk off the skeleton of an elephant offered to Louis XIV by a Portuguese king in 1668. Police caught the robber as he fled, tusk under his arm.

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Police evacuated about 1,400 tourists and staffers at the Eiffel Tower for two hours after an anonymous individual called in a bomb threat Saturday, but people were later allowed to return.

French media reported police had lifted the security alert around 10 p.m. local time, saying the threat appeared to be a hoax. The public was allowed to return once investigators completed the search for suspicious devices.

The call received at 7 p.m. local time warned of a possible attack at 9:30 p.m. local time.

Investigators used sniffer dogs to search the Eiffel Tower for any explosive devices.

French police have received similar calls in the past and have always evacuated the famous tourist attraction as a precaution. The tower was evacuated at least once last year and twice in 2011, according to The Associated Press.

News website Le Parisien reported that police said the threat was called in from a telephone booth in a Paris suburb.

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PARIS — Paris riot police fought back crowds who pushed their way onto Paris' landmark Champs-Elysees avenue 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, children, retirees, priests — converged on the capital Sunday in a last-ditch bid to stop the bill, many bused in from the French provinces.

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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 French President Francois 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 weigh on the Senate debate.

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, the 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 and then fired tear gas to force them back. Gaining momentum, more and more protesters took side streets to reach the avenue, blocking a key intersection on the route to the president's Elysee Palace.

Police fired more tear gas but were unable to block the crowds from spilling onto the avenue.

"Hollande, Resignation!" the protestors chanted, before breaking into the French anthem, "La Marseillaise."

The demonstrations have become outlets for anger and disappointment in Hollande's presidency.

An official with the Paris police headquarters said two people were arrested and no injuries were reported. 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 more than 1.2 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. "It's the second round, sir. It's not the last battle." 

Associated Press writer Angela Charlton and photographer Michel Euler in Paris contributed to this report.

Former President Nicolas Sarkozy came under formal investigation on Thursday for allegedly taking illegal donations from France’s richest woman when she was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

"Nicolas Sarkozy, who benefits from the presumption of innocence, had been notified that he has been placed under formal investigation for taking advantage of a vulnerable person in February 2007 and during 2007 to the detriment of Liliane Bettencourt," the prosecutor in the southwestern city of Bordeaux said in a statement after a hearing, Reuters reported.

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Investigating Judge Jean-Michel Gentil is looking into conflicting accounts of how many times Sarkosy visited the home of Bettencourt, the heiress to the L’Oreal cosmetics fortune in the run-up to his 2007 election victory.

Bettencourt, now 90, was judged to be suffering from dementia in 2006. She has since come under the legal guardianship of her family.

Suspicions surfaced three years ago when a former account to Bettencourt made allegations about large donations from her accounts were directed to Sarkozy's campaign.

Sarkozy, 57, lost his immunity from prosecution in May when he was defeated in a bid for re-election by Socialist Francois Hollande.

The ex-president has recently seen a surge of popularity in polls and has hinted at running again in 2017. His supporters say the case against him is politically motivated.

The preliminary charges filed on Thursday mean the investigator has probable cause to believe there was a crime, but he could still drop the charges later.

Even if the charges are not proven, he could be under a cloud of suspicion for months or years.

If he is convicted, Sarkozy could face a prison term of up to three years.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A French woman told a court that she simply wasn't thinking when she sent her 3-year-old son to kindergarten wearing a T-shirt reading "Jihad, born September 11" on the back and "I am a bomb" on the front, French media reported Thursday. 

The woman, Boucha Bagour, 34, and her brother, Zeyad Bagour, 29, could be fined 1,000 and 3,000 euros ($1,300 and $3,900), respectively, when their trial on charges of "apologizing for terrorism" resumes next month, the newspaper Le Parisien reported. Both have pleaded not guilty.

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At a hearing Wednesday near Avignon, Bagour, a single mother, said she dressed her son — who really is named Jihad and who she said really was born on Sept. 11 — "without thinking about it" last September. She was charged after teachers and the principal complained to authorities.  

"I thought it might make people laugh," she said, according to Le Parisien.

Zeyad Bagour, the boy's uncle, who is also charged because he bought the T-shirt, said he, too, didn't think there was a problem. The French phrase "je suis une bombe" — literally, "I am a bomb" — is a slang expression of self-regard, and "to me, it means 'I am beautiful,'" he said, adding, that T-shirts with the slogan are widely available in Avignon's markets.

The T-shirts are also widely available for sale online. They're even sold by American Apparel.

The Bagours' lawyer put it more bluntly, telling the court, according to the newspaper, that if they truly meant to support terrorism, they picked a poor venue, noting that the class was filled with kindergartners "who cannot read." 

In an interview with the newspaper La Provence in November, Boucha  Bagour said that while she is Muslim, "there is no message to be conveyed by the T-shirt — no intent."

"'Bomb' is used in the sense of 'handsome,' nothing more," she said. "And my son was actually born on September 11."

"It's just a simple phrase on a T-shirt," she said. "It's nothing dangerous."

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France said on Tuesday it would not negotiate with gunmen claiming to be from Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram who have taken a French family of seven hostage in retaliation for French military intervention in Mali.

The three adults and four children were kidnapped in north Cameroon near the Nigerian border last week. In a video posted online, the gunmen said France had declared war on Islam with its campaign in Mali and threatened to kill the hostages unless authorities in Nigeria and Cameroon freed militants there.

"We do not negotiate on that kind of basis, with these kind of groups," French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told RTL radio. "We will use all (other) possible means to ensure these and other hostages are freed."

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Le Drian said the fighting was not close to an end and troops in Mali's remote mountain and desert north were facing stiff resistance from the "strongest and most organized" rebels, underscoring the risk of French and African forces becoming entangled in a messy guerrilla war.

The kidnapping brought to 15 the number of French citizens held in West Africa and highlighted the danger to French nationals and interests in the region since Paris sent troops to Mali last month to help oust Islamist rebels.

It was the first abduction of foreigners in the mostly Muslim north of Cameroon, a former French colony. But the region - with its porous borders - is within the operational sphere of Boko Haram and fellow Nigerian Islamist militants Ansaru.

Boko Haram, one of a number of al-Qaida linked groups in the region, has killed hundreds of people in recent years in an attempt to establish an Islamist state in Nigeria.

"The principle of terrorism is the same whether you are in Somalia with the Al Shabaab, in Mali with Ansar Dine or in Nigeria with Boko Haram or Ansaru," Le Drian said. "It's the same system, the same methods, which threaten us."

The video posted online on Monday showed the hostages, including the four boys, surrounded by three gunmen wearing turbans and camouflage gear.

"The president of France has launched a war on Islam and we are fighting it everywhere," said one of the apparent kidnappers, identifying himself as a member of Boko Haram.

Mali rebel resistance
In Mali, French and Chadian troops are encountering strong resistance from die-hard al-Qaida-linked Islamists in the mountainous north, Le Drian said.

Chadian troops launched an offensive at the weekend against fighters holed up in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains near the Algerian border but suffered the heaviest losses since the international offensive began last month.

Chad's armed forces said some 23 of its soldiers and about 90 rebels were killed in the fighting. French fighter jets and helicopters were forced to support the Chadian offensive.

"The most fundamentalist elements are there," Le Drian said. "The strongest and most organized forces. We expected resistance and we've had some extremely violent battles."

Paris intervened in its former West African colony six weeks ago to stop a southward offensive by Islamist fighters who seized control of the north last April.

After quickly driving the rebels out of major urban areas, France and its African allies have focused on the remote northeast - an area the size of France that includes networks of caves, passes and porous borders.

Asked about the timing for pulling out the 4,000 French troops, Le Drian said it was hard to give a precise timetable.

"If things evolve normally, we could begin leaving before the end of March," Le Drian said, adding that the operation had cost about $130.73 million so far.

Rebels have staged bombings and raids mainly targeting Mali's poorly trained and equipped army in northern cities.

A spokesman for Mali's military said on Tuesday a total of 37 Malian soldiers had been killed and 138 injured since the start of the offensive. He said five Malian soldiers suspected of ethnic reprisals after the recapture of Timbuktu had been called back to Bamako by military authorities.

Related:

Video appears to show kidnapped French family of 7

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French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn lost his bid to have a court ban a kiss-and-tell book by an ex-lover who has described him as a sex-obsessed "half-man, half-pig" -- but he will collect damages.

In a ruling late Tuesday, a judge green-lighted publication of "Beauty and Beast" by Marcelle Iacub, a lawyer and columnist who had a seven-month affair with the former head of the International Monetary Fund, Le Monde reported.

The court agreed to Strauss-Kahn's demand that a disclaimer declaring his privacy had been invaded be included in every copy. It also ordered the author, the publisher and a magazine that printed excerpts to pay him $98,000, the newspaper said.

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Hours before his partial victory, Strauss-Kahn appeared in a Paris courtroom to complain of the "horror" of having his love life exposed, The Guardian reported.

"Is anything allowed in order to make money?" he asked, branding the book a cheap shot against "a man already down on the ground."

The affair chronicled in the book unfolded while Strauss-Kahn was embroiled in scandal over allegations he sexually assaulted a hotel maid in New York. Criminal charges were dropped by prosecutors who questioned the woman's credibility; Strauss-Kahn later settled a civil claim out of court.

Iacub's book, which is due to go on sale Wednesday, doesn't name Strauss-Kahn, but she has said it's about him. Excerpts published in Le Nouvel Observateur -- accompanied by an interview in which she referred to him as "half-man, half-pig" -- are decidedly unflattering.

"You were old, you were fat, you were short and you were ugly," the 48-year-old former mistress wrote, according to the Guardian. "You were macho, you were vulgar, you were insensitive and you were stingy. You were selfish, you were brutal and you had no culture. And I was mad about you."

Strauss-Kahn's lawyers contend he was seduced into a money-making trap and they tried to persuade the court with an email in which Iacub purportedly confessed the romance was a plot cooked up by her co-workers.

Iacub said she didn't remember the email, disavowed its contents and issued a warning to the Socialist leader once touted as presidential material before scandal doomed his career.

"I don't think it's in [Strauss-Kahn's] best interest for me to start searching through my emails," she said, according to London's Daily Telegraph.

Strauss-Kahn, who is under investigation in connection with a French sex ring, had asked for a disclaimer to be printed in every copy of "Beauty and Beast" already distributed, a ban on more copies being printed, and $130,000 in damages. 

As he left the courthouse, he said there was one more thing on his wish-list: "To be left alone."

 

Islamist militant group Boko Haram has claimed that it is holding a French family of seven captured in Cameroon last week, France's Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Monday.

The video, which appears to show the family, including four children, was posted on YouTube on Monday.

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"(We) have received information that the group Boko Haram is claiming to be holding the French family," Ayrault told reporters, adding that French experts were examining the YouTube video to determine whether it was authentic.

"We have been taken by Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad," one of the male hostages said in the video, referring to the name in Arabic of Nigeria's Boko Haram militants. "They want the liberation of their brothers in Cameroon and their women imprisoned in Nigeria."

The kidnapping on Tuesday of the seven French nationals in Cameroon's far north, near the border with Nigeria, highlighted the risk to French citizens in Africa since Paris sent troops into Mali to oust Islamists there.

"The president of France has launched a war on Islam," said one of the apparent kidnappers, warning that the hostages would be killed if their demands were not met.

Cameroon Communication Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said he could not comment because his government was not aware of the video.

The governor of Cameroon's Far North Region, Augustine Fonka Awa, said he was not aware of any Boko Haram members being held in the country.

Related:

Nigeria in 'massive manhunt' for French hostages

French special forces join hunt for kidnapped family

 

 

 

 

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Security forces are searching for a family of seven French tourists kidnapped by suspected Islamist militants in Cameroon three days ago and taken into Nigeria, police said on Friday.

There has been a surge in clashes in recent days between suspected members of Islamist sect Boko Haram and the military in Nigeria's northeastern town of Maiduguri, near the border with Cameroon.

Security forces and Western diplomats believe it could be an attempt by Boko Haram to draw Nigerian troops into conflict within the city and limit their search and rescue capability.

"There is a massive manhunt ongoing," National Police spokesman Frank Mba told Reuters.

"Security operatives are working around the clock with search and surveillance to solve this."

The French hostages and kidnappers were near a small town called Dikwa at one point on Thursday, a Nigerian military source in Maiduguri said, asking not to be identified.

Dikwa is about 50 miles from Maiduguri and about the same distance to the border with Cameroon, where the three adults and four children were taken hostage on Tuesday.

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French President Francois Hollande said on Thursday the hostages had probably been separated.

French gendarmes backed by special forces arrived in northern Cameroon on Wednesday to help locate the family, a local governor and French defence ministry official said.

The abduction was the first case of foreigners being seized in the mostly Muslim north of Cameroon, a former French colony, and highlighted the threat to French interests in West Africa since Paris deployed thousands of troops to Mali to oust al-Qaida-linked Islamists who controlled the country's north.

Islamist sphere
The region - like others in West and North Africa with porous borders - is considered within the operational sphere of Boko Haram and fellow Nigerian Islamist militants Ansaru.

On Sunday, seven foreigners were snatched from the compound of Lebanese construction company Setraco in northern Nigeria's Bauchi state, and Ansaru took responsibility.

Boko Haram frequently clashes with security forces in its stronghold Maiduguri but witnesses said there has been a surge in attacks in the last three days.

The military in Maiduguri declined to comment.

Many people were killed when suspected members of Boko Haram blew up a customs office, destroyed roadside stalls and fought gunfights with the military on Thursday, three witnesses and a military source said.

"After the explosion the Boko Haram started sporadic shooting with rapid propelled guns leading to the death of many people," a commander in the military Joint Task Force told Reuters, asking not to be named.

Two corpses lay outside a police station on Friday, believed to be those of militants, witness Aminu Hakuri said. Three people were killed on Wednesday when a bomb targeting the security forces exploded in central Maiduguri.

Northern Nigeria is increasingly afflicted by attacks and kidnappings by Islamist militants. Ansaru, which rose to prominence only in recent months, claimed the abduction in December of a French national who is still missing.

Three foreigners were killed in two failed rescue attempts last year after being kidnapped in northern Nigeria. Ansaru, blamed for those abductions, warned this could happen again.

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