Europe

PARIS (Reuters) - Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire expressed France’s stiff opposition to a possible near-$20 billion takeover of Carrefour by Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard on Friday, driving the French retailer’s shares down by 4.5%.

“Food security is strategic for our country so that’s why we don’t sell a big French retailer,” Le Maire told BFM TV. “My answer is extremely clear: we are not in favour of the deal. The no is polite but it’s a clear and final no,” he said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices fell on Friday as concerns about Chinese cities in lockdown due to coronavirus outbreaks tempered a rally driven by strong import data from the world’s biggest crude importer and U.S. plans for a large stimulus package.

Brent was down 93 cents, or 1.7%, at $55.49 by 0950 GMT, after gaining 0.6% on Thursday. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was down 71 cents, or 1.3%, at $52.86 a barrel, having risen more than 1% the previous session.

LONDON (Reuters) - The British government said on Friday it had no plans to lower standards on workers’ rights, rejecting a Financial Times report that a shake-up of EU labour regulations as part of a post-Brexit overhaul was in the works.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The number of people fleeing violence in the Central African Republic has doubled in just a week to nearly 60,000, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday.

Intensifying violence since a Dec. 27 presidential vote is responsible for the sharp increase in refugees, the UNHCR said, adding that most had fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo across the Ubangui River.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Euro zone banks have suffered some damage so far from the coronavirus pandemic, but that could change once official support measures are lifted, the European Central Bank’s top supervisor said on Friday.

Even though the euro zone economy was severely curtailed, banks saw their bad loans fall in the third quarter of last year, thanks to unprecedented government guarantees and moratoria as well as support from the ECB itself.

Paris, Jan 15 (AP-PTI) All of France will be under a stricter curfew starting Saturday at 6 p.m. for at least 15 days to fight spread of the coronavirus.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex also announced strict new controls for those arriving in France from countries outside the European Union. Starting Monday, they must produce a PCR test with negative results and self-isolate for seven days followed by a new, negative test.

ATHENS, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Greece's parliament approved on Thursday the purchase of 18 French-made Rafale fighter jets (6 new ones and 12 used) to the tune of 2.5 billion euros (3.04 billion U.S. dollars), national news agency AMNA reported.

The draft bill on the defense procurement deal was supported by the ruling party, as well as several opposition parties.

The delivery of the first planes will be made this year and the program will be completed in 2023, according to the timetable.

MADRID (AP) — While most of Europe kicked off 2021 with earlier curfews or stay-at-home orders, authorities in Spain insist the new coronavirus variant causing havoc elsewhere is not to blame for a sharp resurgence of cases and that the country can avoid a full lockdown even as its hospitals fill up.

The government has been tirelessly fending off drastic home confinement like the one that paralyzed the economy for nearly three months in the spring of 2020, the last time Spain could claim victory over the stubborn rising curve of cases.

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/: Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny has been declared wanted after he missed several criminal inspection registrations as a person under suspended sentence for the Yves Rocher case, the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service told reporters.

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/: The Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Healthcare Ministry plans to begin clinical trials of a combined vaccine against the coronavirus and flu in the middle of 2022, Center’s Director Alexander Gintsburg told TASS on Thursday.