Internet giant, Google has been ordered by French Court to compensate by paying thousands of dollars to France-based mapping company for allegedly altering competition in the market by offering its own service for free to the users.

The French firm, Bottin Cartographes offers map services to businesses in the country for a fee. The company had filed an unfair competition complaint against Google France as its parent company Google Inc. It argued that Google is involved in anticompetitive practices by providing free mapping services in the country.

The Indian authorities have finalized the Rafale fighter of Dassault Aviation for its $10.4 billion medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) deal, according to the French company.

The Rafale fighter piped the other finalist, Eurofighter Typhoon to bag the contract from the Indian air force. Indian officials indicated that they will soon enter exclusive talks with the French company for the supply of 126 multi role aircraft for the Indian Air force.

Paris, Jan 27 : India has become the 32nd signatory for the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said Thursday.

India's signing of the convention, a multilateral agreement promoting international cooperation while respecting the rights of taxpayers, sent "a strong signal that countries are acting together to ensure that individuals and multinational enterprises pay the right amount of tax, at the right time and in the right place," the OECD said.

Credit rating agency, Standard & Poor's has announced its decision to downgrade several Euro zone countries on Friday including France.

The decision to downgrade France's credit worthiness to AA+ results in only Germany being a large Euro nation struggling to control the group’s crisis. France was the only country with the highest ranking to backing expansionary policies during the crisis.

Jean-Claude Mas, the founder of Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), is believed to be a former butcher who is wanted for a drunk driving incident that occurred a few years ago.

PIP is in the centre of an international row as the breast implants produced by the country are suspected of having links to the risks of cancer and of being prone to rupture and leakage.

The authorities in France have advised more than 30,000 women to remove breast implants, which are believed to be linked to risks of cancer and may cause harm to their health.

The government also pointed out that there is no evidence that suggests that implants are linked to the risks of cancer. However, Women have been advised to consult their surgeons. It is believed that more than 30,000 women in France, 40,000 women in the UK as well as thousands of women in other countries are affected.

The government in France has said that it will take a decision on whether it will pay about 30,000 women to remove breast implants, which have been found to be harmful to their health and might be linked to risks of cancer.

Indian Finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee has said on Wednesday that the FRech Authorities have provided information about unaccounted money amounting to Rs 400 crore in nearly 69 overseas accounts of Indians.

The authorities have also recovered Rs 30 crore in taxes from the account holders. The Finance minister said that the government could get the information from the French government due to the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) signed between the two countries.

Mukherjee also aid that the government’s effort to trace black money in different contraries are bringing results. He informed economic editors that specific requests in 333 cases have already been made to get information from foreign authorities.

Paris, Sep 20 - Hollywood star couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have hired former guards of Britain's Special Air Service (SAS) to protect their home in France from organised crime gangs.

The couple - who raise six kids - have enlisted ex-servicemen and installed a 150- million-pound state-of-the-art security system after they came to know that gangs from Russia and Italy were targeting rich foreigners in their Provence area, southern France.

Paris, Sept 5 : Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was reportedly questioned by police over allegations of sexually abusing a French writer, when he arrived in Paris.

A police escort rushed Kahn and his wife Anne Sinclair through customs and into a waiting limousine after they landed at Charles de Gaulle airport yesterday, Express. co. uk reports.

Paris, Aug 20 : Marine scientists would soon meet at the Paris-based Unesco to discuss measuring the impact of noise on marine life, the UN agency said.

The main agenda of the meeting - to be held Aug 30-Sep 1 - would be to discuss the programme of the International Quiet Ocean Experiment, Xinhua reported.

"This decade-long project aims to fill the considerable knowledge gaps in this area, so that management of ocean noise can be more informed and effective," Unesco said in a statement.

According to a new study published by research firm comScore, mcommerce usage in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK rose a whooping 80 cent over the past year.

The report also showed that about 13.5 million smartphone users in these countries accessed mobile comer sites from their mobile devices in the three month period until the end of May 2011.

The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) has unveiled a new hypersonic passenger project at the Paris Le Bourget air show, Today.

The group says that jet hypersonic jet that is twice the speed of Concorde. The jet will fly above the atmosphere and use biofuel to take off from a runway initially. This will allow the plane to avoid the supersonic boom and pollution seen in concede.

According to a media report, France wishes that Britain and Germany should join hands and form a military partnership so that all the three nations can share equipment as well as troops.

The media has reported that Germany could get together with a force established as part of the Anglo-French defence agreement made back in the month of November, and also all the three sharing transport aircraft and tankers for refueling air.

According to the senior British defence officials, Britain was very interested to have betterment in the defence relations it had with the Germans.

BANK NOTE copier, De La Rue was advised yesterday by its French conquest suitor to own up its rapport with the Reserve Bank of India. Oberthur Technologies, with £900million offer approach for De La Rue was rejected previous month, expressed that it feels associations among De La Rue and its major customer had been "significantly damaged" later faulty banknote paper was presented previous summer.

Mumbai, Oct 27 :France-based production and distribution company Studio Canal will distribute Aamir Khan starrer "3 Idiots" in that country in June next year.

"We distributed videos of '3 Idiots' in the UK and we will distribute the film in France probably around June 2011," Rodolphe Buet, executive vice president, international distribution and new business of Studio Canal, told IANS in an exclusive interview.

Buet is here for the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) event.

The bank BNP Paribas has reported a growth in its profits for the second quarter of this year.

According to the bank the growth has been possible because of the growth in its retail banking sector which has managed the fall in the investment banking operations.

The net profit of the bank rose up by 31% for the second quarter till the month of July compared to the same period of time of last year and the profits reached to 2.1 billion euros.

Alstom has surprised a team of journalists from India and France by opening the largest rotor balancing facility in the world.

With a big, long tunnel at the floor level having huge contraptions with a big steam turbine situated within it, Alstom plans to produce steam turbines for nuclear and coal-fired electricity generating purposes.

It has been reported that the investigation into Liliane Bettencourt, the richest woman in France, has become more intense with police raids on her financial managers.

According to reports of the Guardian, the scandal has hurt President Nicolas Sarkozy. Polls show his popularity has hit new lows.

It has also been reported that the wife of Eric Woerth, the employment minister, worked for Clymene, a company that helped manage Bettencourt's money. Investigators raided the Clymene office and the home of Patrice de Maistre, her financial adviser.

According to official reports, the French government plans to postpone $888 million worth of upgrades to its Mirage 2000D fighter-bombers as part of an effort to cut back spending.

According to a report from DefenseNews, Defense Minister Herve Morin, speaking at a hearing this week of the Parliamentary Defense Committee, also said the government plans to delay acquisition of Multi Role Tanker Transport aircraft and level-four of the SCCOA national air command-and-control system.