PARIS, Dec 31- An embarrassing derailment of President Francois Hollande's 75 percent millionaires' tax may open an opportunity to water down a scheme that had damaged France's image with international investors, but he is unlikely to give up without a fight.
ISTANBUL, Dec 31- Turkey accused the European Union of bias and bigoted attitudes towards the EU candidate country on Monday and blamed it for undermining the Turkish public's trust in the bloc.
PARIS, Dec 26- France should worry more about the credibility of its efforts to cut back on flab in public finances than whether or not it meets the EU's 3 percent of GDP target for the budget deficit immediately, the IMF's mission chief said on Wednesday.
*Critics say socialists turning France into museum. To be sure, Hollande's headline-grabbing 75 percent income tax band may well be prompting well-off French to consider lives as exiles in Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland or Britain.
*Peugeot aims to sign refinancing deal next month. Plans to pool replacements for larger models such as the Citroen C5 and GM's Opel Insignia were dropped after the companies failed to reach a "convincing business case", a Peugeot spokesman said. "The subject was clearly too conflictual between France and Germany," Societe Generale analyst Philippe Barrier said.
Plans to share future replacements for larger models such as the Citroen C5 and GM's Opel Insignia were shelved after the companies failed to reach a "convincing business case", a Peugeot spokesman said.
*Levy left Vivendi in June in strategy dispute. ISTRES, France/ PARIS, Dec 19- Jean-Bernard Levy emerged on Wednesday as the next chief executive of French arms firm Thales, months after a strategy dispute cost him his job as head of media and telecoms group Vivendi.
That includes firms such as Chicago- based biotech Novian Health, lured to a technology park outside Paris by generous tax credits for research and development. "For early-stage companies it's a really big plus because you can recoup a lot of your R&D expenses," Novian Health's Vice President Gene Bajorinas told Reuters. "
ISTANBUL, Dec 18- Budget carrier Pegasus Airlines turned its back on Boeing and placed its first order for Airbus jetliners on Tuesday in a $7.5 billion deal hailed as Turkey's largest single plane order. Pegasus currently operates aircraft built by Airbus's arch-rival Boeing.
PARIS, Dec 16- France's opposition UMP conservative party won three by-elections on Sunday despite its own internal problems, in the latest sign of trouble for Socialist President Francois Hollande.
Hollande's government has faced criticism over the tactics it used in a two-month battle over the future of ArcelorMittal's Florange steel plant, which unnerved investors in the euro zone's second largest economy and confused France's unions.
*Berlin, Paris diverge on looser budget rules, ECB warns. BRUSSELS, Dec 14- Germany rebuffed calls for more financial risk-sharing in the euro zone on Friday, rejecting a proposal for a fund to help debt-laden countries cope with economic shocks and leaving open who would pay to wind down stricken banks.
*Recession, Spain bailout, elections loom next year. BRUSSELS, Dec 14- European leaders agreed on Friday t o press on with further steps to tackle t hei r debt crisis bu t German Chancellor Angela Merkel threw out a proposal to boo st risk-sharing with a fund to help eur o zone states in trouble.
*Europe's leaders hold sixth summit of 2012. BRUSSELS, Dec 13- European leaders agreed to press on with further steps to shore up their finances and sustain momentum in tackling the debt crisis on Friday, a day af ter clinching a deal on banking su pervision and approving lon g-delayed aid to Greece.
BRUSSELS, Dec 14- With the pressure off after finance ministers clinched a significant agreement on a single banking supervisor, European Union leaders differed widely at a summit on Thursday over the next steps for their troubled currency union.