Paris, March 21: The European Space Agency's GOCE satellite has completed its early orbit phase.

During the critical Launch and Early Orbit Phase, beginning with separation from its booster on March 17, GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) was checked out to confirm that all of its control systems are operating normally.

The end of the Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) came overnight after GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) was switched to Fine Pointing Mode.

Paris - The French government's statistics office Insee said on Friday that France's economy would contract in 2009 at least twice as much as the government had predicted.

French GDP will decline by 1.5 per cent in the first quarter of this year, Insee said, followed by a slight improvement to a drop of 0.6 per cent in the second quarter, because of the assumed effect of the stimulus plans initiated by the French and other governments.

Paris - Up to 3 million people took to the streets of cities throughout France on Thursday to protest the economic policies of President Nicolas Sarkozy, CFDT trade union head Francois Chereque said.

The largest-ever public outcry against Sarkozy since he came to office was accompanied by a general strike in which workers from both the private and public sectors walked off their jobs for the day.

Union officials said that more than 350,000 people demonstrated in Paris, while 300,000 protested in the southern port city of Marseille.

Paris - The Disney Pixar animated 3-D film Up has been selected to open the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, organizers of the event announced on Thursday.

Up was directed by Pete Docter, who also made the film Monsters Inc. and developed the story and characters for Toy Story, Pixar's first full-length animated feature film.

Up concerns an old man who ties balloons to his house and fulfills a boyhood dream by flying to South America, but with a 9-year-old Boy Scout as a stowaway. It features the voices of Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer and John Ratzenberger.

Paris  - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown arrived at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Thursday for talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The discussion was to centre on the EU summit, which opens later Thursday in Brussels, and the meeting of the G20 nations scheduled to be held on April 2 in London.

According to a source in the British government, Brown and Sarkozy were to concentrate on several issues related to the global financial and economic crisis.