France to consider bill allowing same-sex marriage

PARIS -- French President Francois Hollande delivered on a controversial campaign pledge Wednesday, sending the legislature a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in France, Europe's second-most-populous nation.

Hollande's Cabinet approved the draft "marriage for all" bill, which would give same-sex couples the same legal rights as heterosexual ones, including the ability to adopt children. Lawmakers are set to examine the measure in Parliament in mid-January.

The proposal was declared a historic event by many French media organizations and comes 31 years after the French government refused to recognize medical designations of homosexuality as a mental illness. The new bill was unveiled just hours after voters on the other side of the Atlantic, in the states of Maryland and Maine, approved same-sex-marriage measures.

Hollande hailed the bill as a sign of "progress not only for a few, but for the whole of society."

"It's an important step toward equal rights for all," said Dominique Bertinotti, minister in charge of family issues, as she left the Cabinet meeting Wednesday afternoon. 

"We don't take anything away from heterosexual couples," Bertinotti added. "We enlarge and give the possibility for same-sex couples to have the same rights and, I repeat, the same duties."

Obama still a winner in Europe, poll shows

LONDON -- The U.S. presidential election remains too close to call, but there’s one place where the polls show President Obama blowing Mitt Romney out of the water: Europe.

A survey of seven European nations, including longtime U.S. allies Britain and France, has found that Obama would win more than 90% of the vote if the respondents could cast ballots in Tuesday’s race. The survey was conducted by YouGov, a respected British-based polling organization that has also tracked Obama’s and Romney’s numbers within the U.S.

“No doubt many Americans are not overly concerned about who Europeans think they should vote for,” said Joe Twyman, YouGov’s director of political and social research. “On the other hand, history has shown that when a president is unpopular with the people of Europe, it can have a far-reaching
effect on how those people view the whole United States.”

The poll, which covered Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, found that Romney failed to garner more than 10% support in any of those countries. In Sweden and Denmark, the former Massachusetts governor fared even worse: Only 1 in 20 people named him as their choice.

The results attest to Obama’s enduring popularity on this side of the Atlantic even as he has struggled to maintain support at home.

U.S., allies marshaling African proxies for fight against terrorism

"A quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing."

That was how British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain saw the Nazi threat against the Czech Sudetenland in 1938, a sentiment freshly evoked among war-weary citizens as the United States and its allies ponder moves to oust Islamic extremists from northern Mali, a country most Americans couldn't find on a map.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and diplomatic counterparts from France have been shopping around a plan to train and equip West African troops to drive out the Al Qaeda-aligned militants who hold sway over a swath of northern Mali the size of Texas. Ultraorthodox Muslims this year hijacked a long-simmering rebellion by ethnic Tuaregs and began imposing an extreme version of Islamic law once in power. In July, they took axes to "idolatrous" cultural treasures in Timbuktu, provoking worldwide horror at the destruction.

Like Afghanistan before 9/11, when Taliban collusion with Al Qaeda made the country a training ground for terrorism, Mali left in the grip of militant Islamists runs the risk of becoming the next launch pad for attacks on the United States and its allies.

U.S. interest in rooting out Ansar Dine and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb from northern Mali has intensified in the seven weeks since a suspected terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The Al Qaeda affiliates in Mali are believed to have played at least a supportive role in the Benghazi attack.

"The Benghazi event, with the murder of Chris Stevens, has really precipitated American intervention. It's turned the tables in the region," said Ghislaine Lydon, a history professor at UCLA and expert on precolonial Northwest Africa.

Greek journalist in court for revealing names of potential tax cheats

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.

ATHENS -- A Greek journalist who was arrested after publishing the names of more than 2,000 fellow citizens believed to have stashed about $2 billion in Swiss bank accounts appeared in court Monday to answer charges of breach of privacy.

Kostas Vaxevanis, a prominent investigative journalist and editor of Hot Doc magazine, was arrested Sunday but released hours later pending trial. In an Athens courtroom Monday, his attorney requested a continuance to prepare for a hearing scheduled for Thursday.

"This is a case of utmost public interest, and we want it to be heard," Harris Economopoulos, Vaxevanis' attorney, said in a telephone interview. "We want the truth to come out. Greeks have endured enormous sacrifices, and they are facing yet a new wave of austerity [measures]. They have the right to know whether there is a case of political coverup."

Vaxevanis insists that the published list, which includes the names of high-profile Greek businessmen and politicians -- even the brother of former Prime Minister George Papandreou -- is the same list that former French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde relayed to her Greek counterpart two years ago to help Athens crack down on rampant tax evasion in Greece. His list, however, included more names than Lagarde reportedly handed over.

Since then, successive governments have been accused of trying to cover up the scandal, with two finance ministers and a number of judicial and tax officials shifting responsibility and blame.

London's historic Admiralty Arch will become a hotel

LONDON -- Admiralty Arch, a century-old stone archway and building that serves as the ceremonial gateway to Buckingham Palace, is to get a new lease on life as a luxury hotel, a government minister confirmed Thursday.

Built by King Edward VII to honor the long reign of his mother Queen Victoria, the arch has been leased to Spanish property entrepreneur Rafael Serrano, chief executive of the London-based investment company Prime Investors Capital. Serrano paid about $96 million for the 99-year lease.

From the top of the central archway on one side guests will enjoy a view toward Buckingham Palace down the Mall, the tree-lined avenue that is the traditional route of royal processions, including April’s royal wedding cortege of Prince William and his bride Catherine Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge. The other side looks down on Trafalgar Square, home to Nelson’s Column and a meeting point for public celebrations, rallies and protests.

It is the latest of the government property fire sales around Europe over the last two years that come amid austerity drives to tame massive deficits. In France and Italy, government-owned palaces and villas have gone to wealthy private investors. In Greece, state-owned buildings, marinas and ports reportedly are up for sale.

Rogue French trader loses appeal, faces prison, colossal damages

This post has been updated. See the notes below.

PARIS -- A French appeals court Wednesday upheld the conviction of former bank trader Jerome Kerviel for committing one of the biggest financial frauds in history.

Kerviel, 35, was ordered to spend three years in prison and to pay back his former employer, French bank Societe Generale, a whopping $6.4 billion in damages to cover its costs from his trades.

During a four-week hearing in June, Kerviel, described by the public prosecutor as a "perverse manipulator," had asked the Paris appeal court to overturn his conviction in October 2010 for breach of trust, forgery and entering false data. On Wednesday, the court rejected his appeal.

The former trader did not profit personally from making unauthorized bets on the futures markets to the tune of nearly $65 billion, and he is not believed to have the means to pay the damages. He has always maintained that his bosses knew what he was doing and that they turned a blind eye to his trading as long as he was making money.

However, the appeals court threw out his defense and decided Kerviel was "the sole creator, inventor and user of a fraudulent system that caused these damages to Societe Generale."

Mali extremists vow to attack French over calls to oust militants

Religious extremists who hold the northern stretches of Mali in their grip promised revenge attacks against the French this weekend after the European country pushed for regional military action to eject them.

“They are the kind of people with whom nothing works except blood and destruction," one extremist wrote Saturday in an online forum used by Islamists, according to SITE Monitoring Service.

The online messages urged militants to attack French companies, factories and citizens in Africa, encouraging them to model themselves on Mohamed Merah, who French authorities say confessed to a string of deadly shootings of soldiers and schoolchildren in France last March before dying in a shootout with police. No authorization was needed to kill the French, one of the messages said, and rebels and their allies “should not hold back.”

The warnings were echoed Sunday by a top official from one of the Islamist groups controlling the north, who told Bloomberg they were disappointed with France and the international community.

“President [Francois] Hollande is risking the lives of all French nationals in Africa and the rest of the world,” Oumar Hamaha, operations chief of the group Ansar Dine, told the news agency by telephone.

U.N. Security Council asks Mali to draw up plans to retake north

The U.N. Security Council took a key step Friday toward approving military action by an African force in Mali, where religious extremists have capitalized on a rebellion by ethnic Tuaregs and political turmoil to seize much of the north.

The resolution does not give the green light for troops to enter the north. However, it gives Mali and its partners 45 days to come up with a detailed plan for the Security Council to approve. The resolution also demands a halt to human rights abuses and warns the Mali military not to meddle in the affairs of its interim government.

Mali and a coalition of West African countries are seeking to send troops into northern Mali to oust armed Islamists who have imposed a severe interpretation of religious law, stoning alleged adulterers to death and  banning music and mingling. The extremists piggybacked on the earlier gains of Tuareg separatists who gained ground in the chaotic aftermath of a coup in the south.

France has championed the calls for regional action, drafting the Security Council resolution that passed Friday. While on his first official trip to Africa this week, French President Francois Hollande argued that the situation posed a threat stretching beyond Mali to the rest of Africa and all the way to Europe.

West African countries have pledged to provide forces, but want the blessing of the powerful Security Council, which has pushed for more details about their plans before giving its approval.

The crucial step comes as reports pile up of human rights abuses in the country, the latest from a U.N. human rights official who returned from Mali this week with grim accounts of radicals, flush with kickbacks from drug traffickers, buying women and children. The price for a child soldier: $600 upfront, plus $400 a month for their families. The price for a wife: less than $1,000.

France approves European treaty on public-spending limits

PARIS — French lawmakers voted by a large majority Tuesday to adopt the European budget pact that attempts to rein in nations' public spending, a key piece of Europe's strategy to combat its stubborn debt crisis.

After a week of debate, the treaty was ratified by 477 members of the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, with 70 members voting against.

The "golden rule" enshrined in the treaty demands that European countries reduce their public deficit to within 0.5% of gross domestic product, or GDP. At present, France's deficit is hovering around 4.6%, though the country's Socialist president, Francois Hollande, has pledged to reduce it to 3% by the end of next year.

The government has admitted that it is unlikely France will reach the standard of the "golden rule" before 2015. The country has not balanced its books in decades and has regularly flouted existing European Union rules that member states keep their spending to within 3% of GDP. In 2011, France's deficit hit 5.2%.

The pact was opposed by members of the far left, the far right and by some in the Green party. Opponents say that by limiting public deficits and debt, the treaty enshrines austerity into French law.

France unveils its toughest budget in years

PARIS -- France's Socialist government announced the country's harshest budget in 30 years Friday, including $25.8 billion in new taxes.

The hardest hit will be major businesses and the rich, as President François Hollande stuck to his May election pledge to introduce a new "supertax" rate of 75% on those earning over $1.29 million a year.

However, France's public services escaped the major cuts that other Eurozone countries have enforced in the battle to rein in their sovereign debt.

The government needs to find around $47.7 billion to bring France's public deficit down to 3% of gross domestic product by next year, in line with European Union rules. The deficit is currently about 4.5%.

Two-thirds of the deficit cutting is to be made through new taxes and one-third in spending cuts. The government promised that after 2014 the split between taxes and spending cuts would be 50-50.

Of the $12.9 billion in new taxes on companies, most will be raised on large corporations through the removal of tax breaks and exemptions.  Another $12.9 billion of new taxes on households will affect only top earners, said French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who insisted 90% of taxpayers would be spared.

The "supertax" rate of 75%, a controversial populist measure, will apply for at least two years but affects only 2,000 to 3,000 people. However, a new 45% tax rate will be imposed on those earning over $194,000.

Pierre Moscovici, the finance minister, said it was an "unprecedented" budget, but insisted it was necessary to comply with European Union rules of reducing the public deficit to 3%.

Just four months into his five-year term in office, Hollande is under fire from all sides.

As well as grumbling from business leaders, unemployment numbers that topped the symbolic level of 3 million in August and tumbling popularity in the opinion polls, the president is facing revolt from traditional allies in unions and left-wing groups that are threatening strikes if the budget is too austere.

A demonstration is planned for Sunday against the EU's fiscal treaty, which imposes strict deficit limits.

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-- Kim Willsher

Photo: French President Francois Hollande addresses reporters at the United Nations on Wednesday. Credit: Eric Feferberg / AFP/Getty Images