On July 9, she walked into her local police station and described the fictitious attack. None of her fellow passengers moved a muscle as the youths slashed her clothes, cut off locks of her hair, knocked over her 13-month-old baby’s pushchair and scrawled swastikas on her stomach with a marker pen, she said.

She retracted her story four days later, saying she had inflicted the wounds on herself.

Asked by the judge, Jean Idrac-Virebent, if she had not realised that her allegations of anti-semitism  she is not Jewish  would “unleash passions”, she said she had not. Asked why she had pointed the finger at north Africans and black people, she said: “When I watch the telly, they are always the ones who are blamed.”

Her lawyer, Christophe Deltombe, stressed that his client was “well aware that she has deeply upset a lot of people”, but that “at no time whatsoever did she seek the publicity that this affair has received”.

Leblanc’s family said yesterday that she wanted to put the episode behind her. She told investigators she made up the attack, which sparked outrage in the media, so her boyfriend would spend the day with her.

“She’s always told stories, since she was very small,” her older brother, Jean-Baptiste, told French radio. “She told me so many that I stopped listening.”

Her mother, Genevieve, said Marie-Leonie had “told a lot of lies” as a girl, “not in a wicked way, but to grab attention, like many kids”.

The public prosecutor told the court that on six occasions between 1999 and 2002, Leblanc had filed formal complaints about assaults that had never been investigated because they could not be substantiated.

“It was the SOS of a young woman who was depressed, who didn’t know what to do,” her mother said. “Then she was caught up in the whole spiral.”

A psychiatrist said Leblanc had “a strong need to be acknowledged, no matter what the price”.

Her mother said Leblanc was now “getting better”. She had started a course of treatment and planned to finish her studies to become a management assistant.

“This trial should help her stop the lies.”

The incident caused uproar in France, which is highly sentitive to allegations of anti-semitism. Days earlier, President Jacques Chirac had demanded a determined fight against racism and all other forms of intolerance that were “soiling” France.

Soon afterwards, the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, urged French Jews to flee to Israel to escape “the wildest anti-semitism”.

The interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, ordered the deportation of all foreign nationals found guilty of participating in the riots, including those with residence permits. “When one has the honor to have a permit, one should not be caught provoking urban violence,” he said.

Copycat arson attacks were reported in Germany and Belgium for the third day running, though police said they were small-scale incidents and not gang related.

Nine cars have been set alight in Berlin since the weekend, compared with hundreds a night in France. “These appear to be individual acts,” said a German police spokesman. “Our situation is nothing like Paris. There is only a marginal connection.”

Despite some media criticism and fears that the emergency measures — never before used in mainland France — would prove a further provocation, a poll for Le Parisien newspaper showed that a large majority of French people back the government’s stance: 73 percent said they supported the decision to give selected local officials the power to impose nighttime curfews.

Major cities such as Marseille, Strasbourg, Lyon and Toulouse, as well as the Paris suburbs, were given emergency powers, in force for the next 12 days. Only half a dozen towns had actually imposed curfews, on minors, by late Wednesday.

An extra 1,000 police were brought in overnight, bringing the total on duty across the country to 11,500. Residents in several towns organized patrols, taking turns in standing guard with fire extinguishers over apartment buildings, car parks and local facilities such as schools and social centers.

The government released details of a package of measures to improve conditions in the suburbs of major cities, aimed mainly at ensuring that the education system serves North African and black youths better and improves their chances of getting a job. All unemployed people under 25 and living in one of the 750 sensitive suburbs will be assessed by job centers and given guidance and work placements. Benefit claimants will get a one-off 1,000-euro payment to return to work as well as 150 euros a month for 12 months. Companies will be given tax breaks if they set up on or near these suburbs.

Some 5,000 extra teachers and educational assistants are to be recruited for schools serving the suburbs concerned, 10,000 scholarships will be awarded next year to encourage academic achievers to stay at school, and 10 boarding schools will be created for those who want to study away from their suburb. The school-leaving age will be lowered to 14 for underachieving pupils eager to take up an apprenticeship.

A national agency for “social cohesion and equality of opportunity” is to be set up, and an extra 100 million euros allocated to community organizations active in youth and social work.

There were growing signs Wednesday that the riots may unsettle the French economy. The euro came under pressure as concerns grew about the impact of the riots on tourism and consumer confidence.

This article has been provided by the Guardian through a special arrangement with Salon. ) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005. Visit the Guardian’s Web site at http://www.guardian.co.uk.

He will be succeeded as ruler by Prince Albert, 47. Rainier’s body was transferred from the hospital back to his hilltop palace Wednesday morning, where he will lie in state in the chapel until the funeral on April 15.

“Everyone here feels orphaned,” Patrick Leclercq, Monaco’s minister of state, said on French television. The presidents of France and Germany praised his reign, and the European Commission and Britain sent their condolences.

The prince will be buried alongside his wife at Monaco Cathedral, where they married in 1956. An empty slab of marble awaits beside her tomb. But if the world remembers him as the devoted husband (he never remarried) of the princess, and as the father of three errant children whose escapades kept the European paparazzi in gainful employ for decades, in Monaco Rainier is feted as the “builder prince.”

It was his vision that created the magnet that Monaco became for the super-rich and super-beautiful, his energy that kept the jealous French at bay, his ambition that transformed a sleepy resort into a center of finance with a seat at the United Nations.

It may be hard to believe now, but when Prince Rainier inherited Monaco from his grandfather, Louis II, in 1949, it was a rather rundown sort of place. By then the principality had been in the hands of his family, the Grimaldis, for the best part of 700 years. In 1297 Rainier’s ancestor Francois Grimaldi arrived in Monaco and, disguised as a monk, took over the fortress high above the Mediterranean on the site where the royal palace now stands in a bloodless coup.

As royal dynasties came and went across Europe, the Grimaldis held their own. Rainier III, however, was determined to push Monaco onto the international stage. He set about reinventing the place as a center for finance, a principality where the very wealthy could base themselves and watch their riches grow thanks to the very favorable, and very discreet, tax regime.

Under Rainier’s watchful eye, Monaco, not much bigger than Regent’s Park in central London, expanded in all directions. Elegant mansions and apartments were crammed onto its crags; shopping malls and a train station were built underground to save space; land reclaimed from the sea increased the country’s size by 20 percent.

But Monaco would not have become the place it is without Rainier’s marriage to Kelly, whom he met during a 1955 film festival. Aristotle Onassis summed it up at the time: “A prince and a movie star. It’s pure fantasy.” The presence of Princess Grace gave Monaco a sheen, a touch of class it might have otherwise lacked.

The Monaco Grand Prix also helped. Every spring its narrow streets are turned into a racing track that for many is the highlight of the Grand Prix calendar. Attracted by the glamour, and of course those tempting tax conditions, racing drivers, rock stars and tennis players made Monaco their home. But tragedy struck.

In September 1982 a Rover saloon carrying Princess Grace and Stephanie, then 17, plunged into a ravine from one of the hairpin bends that separate the Grimaldi family’s weekend retreat from the royal palace in Monaco town. Princess Grace died the day after the accident.

Following the death of their mother, Stephanie and her sister, Caroline, seemed to lurch from one scandal to another. Stephanie had a series of affairs with men seen as inappropriate. Caroline, the older sister, caused outrage in Roman Catholic Monaco when she was photographed topless. She suffered more torment when her second husband, Stefano Casiraghi, was killed in a speedboat accident in 1990.

Staying a step ahead of the French was another challenge for Prince Rainier. In 1962, President Charles de Gaulle surrounded Monaco with troops and threatened to cut off its water if the French citizens who lived there did not pay taxes. They duly did so. More recently, there have been rows over the principality’s banking secrecy laws and reputation for international money laundering.

But for Monaco’s grieving citizens Wednesday, the question was whether the principality would survive Prince Rainier. Odette Sainsaulieu, 66, told French media outside the hospital that his had been a golden era and “a way of life, a way of living, of managing the principality.”

The Unites States and Europe should try to move beyond “a partnership based on common threats” and focus instead on “common opportunities, beyond the transatlantic community,” she said at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, the elite politics college better known as Sciences-Po.

Rice’s choice of France for the formal unveiling of Washington’s effort to mend badly damaged fences was deliberate: Paris was by far the most outspoken opponent of George W. Bush’s handling of the Iraq war, and popular anti-American feeling here still runs high.

Tuesday, in a 45-minute speech aimed at convincing Europeans of a more conciliatory mood in Washington, Rice said the two continents should put their experience and resources on the table and “discuss and decide together” the best way forward. But she was uncompromising in demanding European backing for Bush’s pledge, in his State of the Union speech last week, to spread freedom around the world. “America stands ready to work with Europe on our common agenda, and Europe must stand ready to work with America,” she said. “After all, history will surely judge us not by our old disagreements, but by our new achievements.”

Washington’s charm offensive has been broadly welcomed by European diplomats, particularly since the Iraq elections on Jan. 30. At a joint press conference with Rice later Tuesday night, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier spoke of “a new phase, a clean sheet” in European-U.S. ties, adding that both partners must aim “to speak and listen more to each other, and respect each other’s convictions.”

Several French commentators have said they see clear signals that the Bush administration, for long happy to ignore the views of all who did not agree with it, is now determined to place improved transatlantic relations at the heart of the president’s second term.

Rice, telling reporters it was time to “reinvigorate” the French-U.S. relationship, noted that France had been America’s first ever ally and that “when we do work together, there is a great deal we can achieve.”

On Iraq, Rice said Islam and democracy were not mutually exclusive, and that while the political process would be difficult, she was confident that the Shiite majority that is expected to emerge understood “their responsibility not to do to their fellow Iraqis what was done to them by those who had them live in tyranny and fear.”

She added: “I think they will come to a conclusion that will surprise us all in how well they do it.” Rice had brief talks with President Jacques Chirac Tuesday night, and dined with Barnier at the Foreign Ministry headquarters on the Quai d’Orsay.

In a further sign of apparently thawing relations, Bush is due to meet Chirac in Brussels on Feb. 21.

Security arrangements at Sciences-Po, on Paris’ Left Bank, were unprecedented, said the institute’s director, Richard Descoings. An entire wing of the building had been sealed off since Saturday. The venue of the speech was announced publicly only on Monday. Only 100 places were available for students and teachers at the college, with the remainder reserved by the U.S. Embassy.

Those who heard Rice speak, however, were largely skeptical. “There’s still a lot of anti-American feeling in France,” Anne-Laure, a student, said afterward. “I’m not sure any one person can overcome the instinctive reaction here to Bush.”

Rice insisted that the United States had “everything to gain” from a stronger, more united Europe as a “partner in building a safer and better world.” Transatlantic ties, she noted, were unbreakable. “We respect each other,” she said.

After reviewing a guard of honor of British and French soldiers, he is to have talks with Blair at Downing Street, make a speech on transatlantic relations to an audience of diplomats and defense specialists, and join the queen in the evening at Windsor Castle.

The president has the potential to make life awkward for Blair at a joint press conference Thursday if asked about Iraq or relations with Bush. Questioned on “Newsnight” Wednesday about whether the Iraq war had made the world safer, Chirac said: “To a certain extent Saddam Hussein’s departure was a positive thing, but it also provoked reactions, such as the mobilization in a number of countries, of men and women of Islam, which has made the world more dangerous. There is no doubt that there has been an increase in terrorism and one of the origins of that has been the situation in Iraq.”

Not surprisingly, he ruled out sending French troops to Iraq, even though he had sent them to Ivory Coast. “The situation there is altogether different. The French in Côte d’Ivoire act under the mandate of the U.N. and also under a unanimous mandate of the African Union. The two cases are quite distinct.”

The Iraq war is the main point of departure between Chirac and Blair. It has also left relations between the U.S. and France fraught, in contrast with the closeness of the Bush-Blair relationship.

Chirac has argued that Blair should realign Britain more with the rest of Europe, as a counterbalance to the power of the U.S. — a view that is rejected by both Bush and Blair. In the “Newsnight” interview, Chirac described anti-French feeling in the U.S. as confined to “an agitated minority” and noted that Americans continued to visit France in large numbers. “I notice that they are still enthusiastic about our cheeses, our chips, our wine,” he said.

His vision is of a world in which a few blocs will dominate: the U.S., Europe, and an Asian bloc dominated by China. He said he was not anti-America and said he favored the U.S. and Europe working together, preferably through an updated U.N. Blair resists total involvement in a European bloc and instead positions Britain as, to use his metaphor, a transatlantic bridge between the U.S. and Europe.

Despite some differences, there is common ground between the French and British governments on other issues. Chirac will line up with Blair in making Africa and climate change the two main issues for next year’s meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized countries. Bush has refused to implement policies to tackle the gas emissions that contribute toward climate change.

While Chirac and Blair talk, six ministers accompanying the French president will meet their counterparts in their departments, and all 14 will then gather for talks at No. 10. They will publish a joint communiqué highlighting areas of common interest.

France has joined Britain and Germany in pursuing an energetic diplomatic approach to Iran over its suspected ambition to build a nuclear weapons capability. The trio has already secured a tentative deal with Tehran that the U.S. is skeptical about.

The French and British governments also share the same basic view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although they differ on tactics. Blair sees the way to make progress through influencing Bush and trying to keep relatively close to the Israeli government. Chirac, dismissing this as a failure so far, wants Europe to act as a united bloc. Chirac insisted the differences between Paris and London over Iraq had not poisoned his personal relationship with the prime minister.

“When I go to Britain, I go happy,” he said. “It’s very curious, this vision of permanent confrontation. I have no confrontation with the English in general, or with Blair in particular.”

The French president’s words came in direct contradiction to Blair, who insisted Monday night that Europe needed to work with America and could help shape its policies. Blair used a keynote speech in the Guildhall in London to warn Europe to stop “ridiculing American arguments and parodying their political leadership” and to concentrate on persuading Washington that “terrorism won’t be beaten by toughness alone.”

But Chirac said Britain’s special relationship with the U.S. had brought few dividends. “When the divergence of views between France and Britain was at its height, when the English wanted to follow the Americans and we didn’t … I said to Tony Blair, your position should at least serve another purpose,” Chirac said. “You should obtain in exchange for it a new start for the peace process in the Middle East. Because that is vital. Well, Britain gave its support [on Iraq] — but I have not been impressed by the payback.”

The clash occurs two days before Chirac visits London to conclude months of celebrations to mark the centenary of the often-stormy Anglo-French entente cordiale.

Speaking coincidentally after the announced resignation of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell — his frequent U.S. ally in tactical battles for influence within the Bush administration — Blair urged both sides to stop behaving “arrogantly” toward each other. U.S. policy was evolving fast, he suggested, and Europe should seize its chance to help shape its policies.

Chirac said that profound differences between Paris and London over Iraq had not soured his relations with Blair. Asked if he would tell the prime minister that he had made a mistake in supporting the U.S., Chirac said he would not, “firstly because I am polite, and secondly because I do not think he did.”

He added in an interview with British correspondents at the Elysée Palace: “Blair took the position he thought he had to take in the interest of his country and his convictions. “The only problem we have ever had was over agriculture, not Iraq. On Iraq, I respect his position. On agriculture one day I got angry, and he did too. We said some disagreeable things to each other at the end of a summit. But we have never crossed words on Iraq.”

Chirac denied the meeting between the two leaders would be acrimonious. “When I go to Britain I go happy; I have no desire to argue,” he said. “I arrive, I ask after Leo, someone goes to get Leo, Leo starts saying ‘Bonjour Monsieur Chirac’ in French, I’m happy, and there we are.

“It’s very curious, this vision of permanent confrontation. I have no confrontation with the English in general, or with Blair in particular.” He described the Franco-British relationship as “built on competition, which implies mutual esteem … It’s a kind of violent love affair.”