President François Hollande's 47-year old partner was slammed for eschewing her Left-wing principles in favour of unabashed champagne Socialism despite the threat of "thousands of job losses in the coming weeks" in companies ranging from Renault to Air France. VSD, the weekly magazine, trained its ire on the 47-year-old divorcee's decision to attend the haute couture shows of Paris fashion week. It described photos of the first lady beaming alongside France's richest man Bernard Arnault at the...

HSBC Holdings Plc’s $9.4 billion sale of its stake in Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. to Thai billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont was initiated by the insurer’s chairman, the official who was approached to buy the stake said. The disclosure is the first confirmation of the Chinese insurer’s role in brokering the transaction and highlights Ping An Chairman Peter Ma’s determination to find his own partner as HSBC looked to exit a decade-long investment. The logo of Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. is displayed...

A 200-year-old law forbidding women to wear trousers in Paris has finally been revoked. By Devorah Lauter, Paris3:32PM GMT 03 Feb 2013153 Comments On January 31, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, France's minister of women's rights, made it officially impossible to arrest a woman for wearing trousers in the French capital. The law required women to ask police for special permission to "dress as men" in Paris, or risk being taken into custody. In 1892 and 1909 the rule was amended to allow women to wear...

Horatio Nelson famously instructed his officers that "you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil". By Henry Samuel, Paris7:55PM GMT 07 Feb 201317 Comments So he may be turning in his grave to learn that the bloodstained chemise he died in after a French musket ball pierced his shoulder at the battle of Trafalgar is to return to enemy territory for the first time since his demise. Nelson's undress uniform, which he changed into as his fleet sailed into battle almost 208 years ago, is to...

Interdealer brokers, the middlemen who line up buyers and sellers of securities for banks, are emerging as key enablers in the Libor scandal after three firms paid a total of $2.6 billion for rigging global interest rates. Employees at firms including ICAP Plc, the world’s biggest interdealer broker, and RP Martin Group Ltd., a smaller British competitor, passed on requests from derivatives traders asking rate-setters at others banks to make favorable submissions, e- mails released as part of...

Germany's education minister has come under mounting pressure to resign after her university stripped her of her doctorate after ruling that she had plagiarised chunks of the paper. The ruling against Annette Schavan comes as a blow to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who is aiming to win a third term in office in federal elections this September. A panel of academics from Düsseldorf University found that Ms Schavan had "systematically and deliberately" passed off the work of others as...

A few days ago my colleague, Mia Aquino, put out the following call for urgent iPhone assistance on Twitter: Mia's not alone: Complete home button malfunction is one of the more common maladies befalling iPhones, if Apple's support forums are any indication. There are all sorts of suggestions for fixes in the link above: Recalibrate the home button; blow in the charging port like it's an old NES game; dab some WD-40 on the button itself. Or, the old reliable: Visit the Apple Store and cry helplessly...

A simple game of tug-of-war ended horribly for two California high school seniors. During Spirit Week at South El Monte High School outside of Los Angeles, Edith Rodriguez and Pablo Ocegueda were playing tug-of-war when the rope snapped. The rope had wrapped around the hands of Rodriguez and Ocegueda, so when it snapped, several of their fingers were severed. Rodriguez, a soccer player, and Ocegueda, a football player, were immediately brought into Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center for surgery...

Miley Cyrus channeled the '90s as she stepped out in a pair of ridiculously short shorts that were cut up-to-there Monday afternoon in Hollywood. Photo agency X17 snapped the engaged 20-year-old singer showing off her fit figure in a pair of jean cutoffs, black Doc Martens and a floral crop top that seemed to be ripped straight from the pages of Sassy magazine. Cyrus, who is engaged to "Last Song" co-star Liam Hemsworth, has undergone a dramatic physical transformation in the past year, having...

What's every publicist's nightmare? A celebrity who can't keep their mouth shut or their clothes on. Hollywood's biggest names are coached about how to handle themselves in interviews and on the red carpet, but they're only human and sometimes they slip up. Whether it's a TMI tweet, interview overshare or unfortunate skin-baring moment, check out these celebrities who've crossed the line of prim and proper....