President Nicolas Sarkozy

PARIS - It was billed as a political duel to the death. In the right corner, Nicolas Sarkozy, incumbent president seeking reelection but trailing badly in opinion polls. In the left, Socialist challenger Francois Hollande, favored to winFrance's presidential runoff Sunday but facing an aggressive rival with nothing to lose. The pair's only live television debate, it had been described by Sarkozy as "the moment of truth. " And, as possibly his last chance to turn his fortunes around, Sarkozy had vowed to "explode" his rival.

PARIS - It was billed as a political duel to the death. In the right corner, Nicolas Sarkozy, incumbent president seeking reelection but trailing badly in opinion polls. In the left, Socialist challenger Francois Hollande, favored to winFrance's presidential runoff Sunday but facing an aggressive rival with nothing to lose. The pair's only live television debate, it had been described by Sarkozy as "the moment of truth. " And, as possibly his last chance to turn his fortunes around, Sarkozy had vowed to "explode" his rival.

France will build a second new-generation nuclear reactor, President Nicolas Sarkozy said, pledging a "new industrial revolution" in an era in which fossil fuels have grown too expensive. France, the country most reliant on nuclear power, has been building its first European Pressurized Reactor, or EPR, on the Normandy coast, and it is expected to go into service in 2012. EPR reactors are intended eventually to replace the aging reactors around the world.

PARIS - Just hours after 40,000 runners gathered at Place de la Concorde, the historic gateway to the French capital, for the start of the Paris Marathon, Nicolas Sarkozy was in the same spot for a rally marking the home stretch of a long reelection campaign. With supermodel wife Carla Bruni in the front row, the French president - and avid runner - clearly intended to show he was in fighting shape to win the race. Unfortunately, last weekend's event evoked an entirely different symbolism: Place de la Concorde is, after all, where King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, lost their heads to the guillotine.

A helicopter carrying 10 French soldiers crashed off the coast of Gabon in central Africa, France said. It was not immediately clear whether there were any survivors. President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said that "all available means" would be deployed to search for those aboard. The helicopter was carrying out joint military exercises with Gabon when it went down.

President Nicolas Sarkozy married former model Carla Bruni at Elysee Palace, tying the knot less than three months after they reportedly first met. The couple said in a statement that they were married "in the presence of their families in the strictest privacy." Sarkozy, 53, told reporters in January that his relationship with the Italian-born heiress, 40, was serious but refused to reveal a wedding date. Sarkozy's approval ratings dropped during their courtship. Analysts said more traditional voters were put off by his jet-setting style.

France's army chief of staff resigned after a bizarre shooting this week in which 17 people were wounded when a soldier taking part in a mock hostage rescue sprayed the civilian audience in Carcassonne with gunfire. Military authorities said the soldier apparently believed his weapon was loaded with blanks. Gen. Bruno Cuche, the army chief for two years, offered his resignation to President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to the president's office. Sarkozy said the incident was the result of "unacceptable negligence."

Lawmakers approved by only a one-vote margin a sweeping revision of France's constitution that gives parliament greater power but also adds privilege to the president. The slim passage reflected the controversy over the reform, backed by President Nicolas Sarkozy but vehemently rejected by the leftist opposition. The change got one more than the 538 votes needed for a three-fifths margin. Parliament can now veto major presidential appointments, and the president can jointly address the two houses of parliament.

President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday defended a plan to require 10-year-olds to honor child victims of the Holocaust, saying adults should not hide terrible truths from children. The idea, floated by the president days ago, rankled psychologists worried about traumatizing youth and has teachers reviving debates about how France remembers World War II. But Sarkozy on Friday stood firmly by the plan in meetings with teachers over proposed reforms of France's school system. "We must tell a child the truth," he said.

France, which gave the English language the word "nuance," is offering a nuanced justification for a bill that would outlaw "concealment of the face in public." According to President Nicolas Sarkozy, the proposed measure should not be seen as an act of hostility toward Muslim women, only a small fraction of whom wear the full-face veil. Rather, the bill is designed to protect "personal dignity, particularly women's dignity," and the openness required of citizens in a republic. This rationalization, however, needlessly complicates a simple reality.

After weeks of what the French press branded "false suspense," President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday night finally announced what everyone expected: He will seek a second term in office. Sarkozy, 57, said it was unthinkable that he would not want to remain in his post given the "unprecedented crisis in France, Europe and the world. " "It would be like a captain saying at the height of a storm that he was giving up," he said on live television. The announcement came as Sarkozy's Socialist Party rival, Francois Hollande, has pulled farther ahead in opinion polls.

Standard & Poor's stripped France of its coveted AAA credit rating and downgraded eight other Eurozone countries in a sign the continent's debt crisis has a way to go before being resolved. The action, announced after U.S. markets closed Friday, was somewhat expected since S&P warned in December that it might slash the ratings. Investors already had priced in the downgrades, for the most part — major global stock indexes suffered only moderate declines, and French bond yields went largely unaffected.

The leaders of France and Germany pledged to remake the rules of Europe, creating a closer economic union buttressed by strict rules on government spending and automatic sanctions against countries that break them. They now must persuade the rest of Europe to agree, and convince dubious financial markets that the steps are enough to regain control over a debt crisis that threatens to destroy the common euro currency. Compromising on their policy differences, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a joint news conference in Paris on Monday that the European Union — or at least the inner core of 17 countries that share the euro — requires greater budgetary discipline.

It was but a glance, a little smirk that the German and French leaders shared in public when asked about Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and his country's economic woes. But that moment at a recent crisis meeting made it very clear where Italy — and everyone else — stands in the Eurozone pecking order. Many Europeans realize that their futures are being increasingly dictated by Germany and France — in that order of importance — personified by a mashup of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy dubbed "Merkozy.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy proved unable to be in two places at once and live up to his nickname "SuperSarko the Omnipresident," missing the birth of his daughter to fly to Germany for talks on the Eurozone crisis with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But upon his return to France, he spoke Thursday of the "very profound joy" felt by him and his wife, Italian-born First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who confirmed that the child had been named Giulia, the Italian form of Julia. "We have been lucky enough to find great happiness.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy paid a historic visit Thursday to the Libyan capital, praising the nation's revolution, urging fugitive former leader Moammar Kadafi to surrender and sending a not-so-subtle message to Syria that room for autocratic rule was shrinking in the region. Both nations played a leading role in the withering NATO air campaign that was essential in toppling Kadafi's rule after more than four decades in power. The two leaders were the first foreign heads of state to visit Libya since Kadafi was ousted from the capital last month and went on the run. "This does go beyond Libya; this is a moment when the Arab spring can become an Arab summer," Cameron told a news conference with Sarkozy and leaders of Libya's transitional government.

It was a day that began with onetime presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn arriving home from America a free man but with his career and reputation in tatters, and ended with First Lady Carla Bruni talking publicly for the first time about the baby she and her husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy, are expecting. In what was either a master stroke of political timing just seven months from a presidential election, or a lucky coincidence - and many suspected the former - the contrast could not have been better for the first family.

France's sometimes fractious Socialist Party, often seen as the likeliest party to unseat President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012, emerged from its annual conference Sunday with no damaging public divisions yet with few shared answers on how to modernize its economic program to adapt to current fiscal conditions. Despite several recent victories, Sarkozy remains unpopular. Yet the Socialists suffer from an image as a divided clan, and the ongoing European debt crisis and France's growing deficit fears have only made the jobs harder, rendering many of the party's earlier proposals seemingly impossible to fund.