Paris - Because of the crisis in the auto market, global sales for French car maker Renault plunged in October, forcing it to reduce its production levels, the company said on Friday.

The three makes produced by Renault - Renault, Dacia and Renault Samsung - sold 188,116 vehicles last month around the world, down 14.1 per cent compared to October 2007.

In Europe alone, sales were off by 16 per cent, Renault said in a statement.

Because of slumping sales, Renault said it would reduce its production levels so that its stock of vehicles at the end of 2008 will be similar to what it was at the end of last year.

Nice, France - The global financial crisis and concerns over Russian and US plans to site missiles in Europe looked set to top the agenda on Friday as Russian and European Union leaders met in the French resort of Nice.

With a meeting of the world's greatest powers in Washington on the financial crisis just 24 hours away, the summit's host, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and his guest, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, are expected to spend much of their time discussing a joint approach to solving the world's financial problems.

Paris  - A four-day strike called by unions representing pilots for French carrier Air France was severely disrupting domestic and international flights on Friday.

Air France said at least 40 per cent of scheduled long-haul flights and half of its short- and medium-distance flights would be cancelled. The company warned that last-minute flight cancellations were also possible.

The job action was called to protest the increase of the retirement age for pilots from 60 to 65, and is to last until midnight on Monday.

On Thursday, in an open letter to the pilots, company head Jean-Cyril Spinetta said the job action would cost the company up to 100 million euros (125 million dollars).

Paris  - Defying predictions of a recession, the French economy grew by 0.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2008, the government's statistical office Insee said on Friday.

Following a GDP drop of 0.3 per cent in the second quarter of this year, most analysts - including Insee - had foreseen more negative growth for the period July to September, which would have represented a technical recession.

But consumer spending unexpectedly grew by 0.2 per cent in the third quarter, which helped fuel the rise in GDP, Insee said.

London, Nov 14 : French President Nicolas Sarkozy saved the President of Georgia from being hanged “by the balls” — a threat made last summer by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

According to an account that emerged on Thursday from the Élysée Palace, Putin had revealed his plans for disposing of Saakashvili when Sarkozy was in Moscow in August to broker a ceasefire in Georgia, The Times reported.

Montreal  - Canadian police arrested a University of Ottawa sociology professor Thursday in connection with the 1980 bombing that killed four people and more than 20 wounded outside a Paris synagogue.

Hassan Diab, 54, was taken into custody by agents of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada's national police force, at his home in Gatineau, Quebec, Diab's lawyer, Rene Duval, told the Ottawa Citizen newspaper.