Paris  - It will take some time to recover from the current economic slowdown, and many industrial nations will eventually plunge into recession, chief OECD economist Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel said in an interview made public on Friday.

"Our base scenario is built on the premise that the current freeze in short-term financial markets will be resolved in a relatively short time span, but that bank deleveraging and recapitalisation, as well as re-building of trust in the markets, will take much more time," Schmidt-Hebbel said.

Paris - Anxiety about corporate earnings and OPEC's announcement that it will cut oil production by 1.5 million barrels per day drove French shares to a five-year low at midday on Friday.

Shortly before noon, the Paris Bourse's CAC 40 index was down 10.62 per cent, to 2,959.29, its lowest level since May 2003, before recovering slightly.

France's two large carmakers, Renault and Peugeot, were among the biggest losers, giving up 18.04 and 13.72 per cent respectively, because the global car market is screeching to a halt.

On Friday, Peugeot announced drastic production cutbacks for the fourth quarter of 2008, and Renault is to shut down its French factories for at least a week because of the drop in demand for cars.

Paris - Anxiety about corporate earnings and the expected announcement that OPEC will cut oil production have driven French shares sharply lower on Thursday.

In mid-morning trading, the Paris Bourse's CAC 40 index was down 6.09 per cent, at 3,109.09, with 39 of 40 listed stocks losing ground.

France's two large car makers, Renault and Peugeot, were among the biggest losers, giving up 16.41 and 14.45 per cent, respectively, because the global car market is screeching to a halt.

Paris, Oct 24 : The COROT satellite has used a technique similar to seismology to detect the presence of stellar quakes in three stars, an observation that has been made for the first time in stars apart from our own.

COROT, which is a joint collaboration between CNES and ESA (European Space Agency), used the seismology-like technique to directly probe the interiors of stars beyond the Sun for the first time.

When global oscillations of the Sun were discovered, scientists realised they opened a window to the Sun’s interior.

Like the propagation of seismic waves on Earth providing information about our planet’s interior, sound waves travel throughout the Sun carrying information about what is happening below the surface.

Paris  - French shares were down in late Thursday trading in the wake of overnight losses on Wall Street and Asian markets.

By mid-afternoon, the Paris Bourse's CAC 40 index had given up 1.49 per cent, falling to 3,240.07, with losers outpacing gainers by about 5 to 1.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's announcement, earlier Thursday, that the government would establish a fund to support struggling strategic companies appeared to have had little effect on share prices.

Transportation shares were hardest-hit, with transport equipment manufacturer Alstom losing 10.05 per cent, to 34.72 euros.

Paris - The French government will establish an investment fund to support the country's strategic enterprises affected by the economic crisis, President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday in Argonay, near the Alpine resort of Annecy.

The fund will make available loans to struggling companies in exchange for shares, which will be sold, presumably at a profit, once the company has stabilized.

The aim of the fund, Sarkozy said, will be to protect strategic companies "from predators looking to profit from a firm's undervaluation" to take control of it.