Latest France Headlines

Remembering the End of the Great War

Nov 11 2005 // Paris: Somber, gray leaden skies cover Paris, as dignitaries gather to commemorate the 87th anniversary of the end of what the French call La Grande Guerre. The weather matches France’s somber mood at the moment,...

French Insurers Plan Rapid Processing of Riot Related Claims

Nov 11 2005 // Spokesmen for France’s insurance industry have indicated that it will speed up claims processing in order to pay for damages to vehicles and property resulting from the urban violence that has rocked France for over...

S&P to Assign Rating to AXA’s Auto ART – A “Landmark Transaction”

Nov 10 2005 // Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services announced that it has assigned its preliminary credit ratings to the €200 million asset-backed floating-rate notes to be issued by FCC SPARC, an SPE, involving the...

S&P Affirms AXA Re ‘AA-” Ratings

Oct 18 2005 // Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services announced from its Paris Office that it has affirmed its “AA-” insurer financial strength ratings on French reinsurer AXA Re and its subsidiaries Compagnie...

News Briefs

Oct 3 2005 // Roundup of Katrina Loss Estimates: As the scope of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina became increasingly evident, European and Bermuda-based insurers and reinsurers continued to calculate their potential...

Willis, France’s Gras Savoye Create Willis Gras Savoye Re

Sep 12 2005 // Willis Group Holdings and Gras Savoye, a leading French insurance broker, announced that they have agreed to join their respective French and Belgian reinsurance businesses in a new Paris-based company, Willis Gras Savoye...

Sep 5 2005 // Extreme Weather Hits Europe: Devastating wild fires in Portugal; torrential rains in Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Romania; drought in much of France. There seems to be no end to the list of extreme weather conditions...

International Newsbriefs

Sep 5 2005 // Extreme Weather Hits Europe: Devastating wild fires in Portugal; torrential rains in Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Romania; drought in much of France. There seems to be no end to the list of extreme weather conditions...

Extreme Weather Hits Europe

Aug 23 2005 // Devastating fires in Portugal; torrential rains in Switzerland, Austria and Romania; drought in much of France – the list of extreme weather conditions continues to grow in Europe. No contrast is more vivid than...

UPDATE: 160 Confirmed Dead in Venezuelan Air Crash

Aug 17 2005 // As the deadly series of plane crashes continued – 4 since Aug. 2 – rescue workers continued to comb the wreckage of the West Caribbean MD-82 that went down yesterday in Venezuela, near the Colombian border. All...

International Newsbriefs

Jul 4 2005 // EU Leaders Fiddle While Europe Burns: The crisis in the European Union, provoked when French and Dutch voters rejected the EU Constitution, is being largely ignored by Europe’s leaders. Instead of a bit of...

EU Leaders Fiddle while Europe Burns

Jun 17 2005 // One would have thought that the crisis in the European Union, provoked when French and Dutch voters rejected the proposed EU Constitution, might have caused a bit of soul-searching and reassessment on the part of...

The Revenge of the Voters – France Rejects EU Constitution

May 30 2005 // Seventy percent of the eligible voters in France expressed their opinion on Sunday, May 29 – a turnout not seen in any recent election. Fifty-five percent of them voted a resounding ‘NO’ to the proposed...

European Nations Offer Lessons in Insuring Catastrophes and Terrorism

Apr 18 2005 // GAO Study Explores Examples of How Public-Private Insurance Partnerships Operate A new U.S. government report indicates that the private U.S. insurance industry would be placed under enormous strain without government...

French Billionaire Denies Conspiring to take over Executive Life

Apr 7 2005 // Through two different translators, French mogul Francois Pinault sought to make one point universally clear to the federal jury hearing the civil suit over failed insurer Executive Life: He did nothing wrong. Testifying in...

New GAO Study: U.S. Needs Government Help to Insure for Catastrophes and Terrorism

Mar 31 2005 // A new U.S. government report indicates that the private U.S. insurance industry would be placed under enormous strain without government intervention if there were a major terrorist or catastrophic event or series of...

Paris Airport Roof Structure to be Replaced

Mar 18 2005 // Aeroports de Paris (ADP), the authority that owns and operates both the Charles de Gaulle airport and Orly airport in the French capital, has determined that the entire roof structure of Terminal 2E must be torn down and...

Report Cites Design and Structural Faults as Cause of Paris Airport Collapse

Feb 16 2005 // Both structural and design faults caused a large section of the newly constructed Terminal 2E at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport to collapse last May, killing 4 people and injuring 3. An investigative commission...

Best Affirms Generali Ratings; Outlook Now Stable

Jan 21 2005 // A.M. Best Co. announced that it has affirmed the financial strength rating of “A+” (Superior) and assigned an issuer credit rating of “aa-” to Italy’s largest insurer Assicurazioni Generali...

U.K., France to Amend Death Declaration Laws

Jan 17 2005 // The U.K., France and other European countries whose citizens lost their lives, or are still missing, in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunamis, are considering ways to amend their laws governing when a missing person...