Washington Post | The Obama administration is considering significant military backing for France’s drive against al-Qaeda-linked militants in Mali, but its support for a major ally could test U.S. legal boundaries and stretch counterterrorism resources in a murky new conflict.

TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com | The economic implosion of Europe is accelerating.  Even while the mainstream media continues to proclaim that the financial crisis in Europe has been "averted", the economic statistics that are coming out of Europe just continue to get worse.  Manufacturing activity in Europe has been contracting month after month, the unemployment rate in the eurozone has hit yet another brand new record high, and the official unemployment rates in both Greece and Spain are now much higher than the peak unemployment rate in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

AFP | The French parliament voted Thursday to ban the use of bisphenol A, a chemical thought to have a toxic effect on the brain and nervous system, in baby food packaging next year and all food containers in 2015. The chemical, commonly known as BPA, is used in "polycarbonate" types of hard plastic bottles and as a protective lining in food and beverage cans. It became a concern following evidence in lab animals of a toxic effect on the brain and nervous system.

France 24 | French men are not as fertile as they used to be, according to a new study which reports that the sperm count in the average Frenchman's semen has fallen by nearly a third over a 16-year period. French men are not as fertile as they used to be, according to a new study. And not only are they producing less semen, but the sperm is of a lower quality at that. Researchers found that the sperm count in French men fell by nearly a third between 1989 and 2005, at a rate of about 1.9 percent a year. The study, published in the Oxford journal Human Reproduction, tested semen samples from more than 26,000 men from across the country.

AFP | France on Monday unveiled a package of reforms designed to increase access to abortion, including 100 percent reimbursement of medical costs by the state social security system. At present French women are only able to claim back between 70 and 80 percent of the costs, which average between 200 and 450 euros depending on whether the abortion is induced by medication taken at home or carried out by surgical procedure in a clinic.

Reuters | President Francois Hollande's Socialist government unveiled sharp tax hikes on business and the rich on Friday in a 2013 budget aimed at showing France has the fiscal rigor to remain at the core of the euro zone. The package will recoup 30 billion euros ($39 billion) for the public purse with a goal of narrowing the deficit to 3.0 percent of national output next year from 4.5 percent this year - France's toughest single belt-tightening in 30 years.

AFP | France's government on Wednesday asked a health watchdog to carry out a probe, possibly leading to EU suspension of a genetically-modified corn, after a study in rats linked the grain to cancer. Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll, Ecology Minister Delphine Batho and Health and Social Affairs Minister Marisol Touraine said they had asked the National Agency for Health Safety (ANSES) to investigate the finding.

Common Dreams | France will maintain its ban on genetically modified crops [GMOs] and will ban fracking, politicians announced during an environmental conference held in Paris Friday and Saturday. "The government is keeping its moratorium on the cultivation of GMO seeds currently authorized in the European Union," Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told the conference in Paris on Saturday.

AP |  France enjoyed a boost in investor confidence with a successful bond auction Monday - but also got a warning from the president that growth so far this year is "nil" and that the country needs to rethink its social model. France's government sold (EURO)6 billlion in short-term bonds at negative interest rates Monday, as investors flock to the perceived safety of Europe's larger economies. It was the first time rates entered negative territory, according to the French Treasury.

Infowars.com | President Barack Obama has told the US Navy and Air Force to prepare air strikes on Syria as part of a “no fly zone” that will be enforced with the aid of British and French military power, according to a report. “Their mission will be to knock out Assad’s central regime and military command centers so as to shake regime stability and restrict Syrian army and air force activity for subduing rebel action and wreaking violence on civilian populations,” reports Israeli intelligence outfit DebkaFile.

Guardian | France's attempt to ban the planting of a Monsanto strain of genetically modified maize was rejected by the EU's food safety body on Monday. In response to scientific evidence submitted by France backing its bid to ban the GM maize, the European Food Safety Authority ruled that "there is no specific scientific evidence, in terms of risk to human and animal health or the environment" to support a ban.

Infowars.com | The mass media is promulgating the notion that the election of Socialist French President Francois Hollande represents some kind of massive sea change and is a direct challenge to the European Union, and yet Hollande’s past and the people he surrounds himself with confirms the fact that he is merely another committed globalist and an enthusiastic supporter of the dictatorial EU’s sovereignty-stripping ethos.

TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com | The results of the elections in France and Greece have made it abundantly clear that there is a tremendous backlash against the austerity approach that Germany has been pushing.  All over Europe, prominent politicians and incumbent political parties are being voted out.  In fact, Nicolas Sarkozy has become the 11th leader of a European nation to be defeated in an election since 2008.  We have seen governments fall in the Netherlands, the UK, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Greece.

Reuters |  A French court on Monday declared U.S. biotech giant Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning of a French farmer, a judgment that could lend weight to other health claims against pesticides. In the first such case heard in court in France, grain grower Paul Francois, 47, says he suffered neurological problems including memory loss, headaches and stammering after inhaling Monsanto's Lasso weedkiller in 2004.

Prison Planet.com | Central banks are presumably so frightened that a growing number of citizens are abandoning rapidly devaluing paper currencies and preserving their wealth through precious metals that governments are now cracking down on the anonymous purchase of gold and silver. Following the Austrian government’s announcement that it was restricting the sales of precious metals to $20,000 a time, an amount which would purchase just 11 ounces, the French authorities have followed suit with an equally draconian new measure to deter people from buying gold and silver.