French engineering group Geci International's Sky Aircraft unit was placed under creditor protection on Thursday, giving it six months to find partners to save the project, Reuters reported. Geci said following the ruling by the commercial court at Briey in eastern France it would use the time to pursue all the options it was exploring to safeguard the future of the Skylander light aircraft. "Management and the company are mobilised to seek financing solutions and to assure a future for the Skylander programme as well as all its staff," Geci said in a statement.

Two Spanish investment firms that own 31 percent of French property company Gecina have filed one of the biggest bankruptcy actions in Spanish history after a bank refused to refinance a 1.6 billion euro ($2.1 billion) loan, Reuters reported. The potential bankruptcy is the latest chapter in Spain's debt saga since its 2008 real estate crash, which forced banks to write billions of euros off property investments.

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to protest against the spread of economic "austerity" in France and Europe, The Guardian reported. Chanting "resistance, resistance", the crowds had been rallied by around 60 organisations, including the leftwing Front de Gauche and the French Communist party, which oppose the European budget treaty. "Today is the day the French people launch a movement against the politics of austerity," said the Front de Gauche president, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Crédit Agricole SA will likely have to pour a further €600 million ($779 million) to €700 million into its flailing Greek unit before it will be able sell the subsidiary, according to people from both the private and public sectors with knowledge of the sales process, The Wall Street Journal reported. The French lender's once grand ambitions in southern Europe have been badly bruised by the sovereign-debt crisis.

Greece should be allowed more time to meet deficit targets set by international lenders provided it is sincere about reforming its economy, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Sunday, Reuters reported. Near-bankrupt Greece needs the European Union and International Monetary Fund's blessing on spending cuts worth nearly 12 billion euros ($16 billion) to unlock its next tranche of aid, without which it faces default and a potential exit from the euro zone. "The answer must not be a Greek exit from the euro zone," Ayrault said in an interview with news website Mediapart.

France's enduring ability to defy economic gravity - adding new taxes on top of one of the highest fiscal burdens in Europe, preserving short working hours, job protection, early retirement and generous welfare benefits - is about to be tested, Reuters reported in an analysis. President Francois Hollande has promised to bring the deficit down to 3 percent of gross domestic product in next week's 2013 budget from a forecast 4.5 percent this year.

French President François Hollande on Sunday sought to brace the nation for its toughest budgetary effort of the past six decades, as he outlined a raft of austerity measures—including a controversial tax on the rich—to shore up public finances. In a television interview, Mr. Hollande said he has given himself two years to turn around France's economy and acknowledged the gravity of that task. He said the country's growth prospects have clearly deteriorated and significantly downgraded the growth forecasts to "barely above zero" for this year and "about 0.8%" for 2013.

Loss-making French spirits group Belvedere is confident that its creditors will approve a plan submitted in August to repay its debt and would consider all options including a tie-up with a larger rival to achieve this, the company said on Thursday. Belvedere, the owner of France's best-selling Scotch whiskey William Peel, is on its third attempt to emerge from court protection from creditors, with whom it has been battling for four years.

The French government has agreed to rescue Crédit Immobilier de France (CIF), after conceding defeat in attempts to find a buyer for the struggling mortgage provider, the Irish Times reported. CIF, which lends mainly to poor households, has been badly hit by a reduced flow of funding from credit markets and tighter rules on capital requirements for banks. It had been up for sale for a number of months but its fate appeared to be sealed last week when Moody’s cut its credit rating, saying it was in effect locked out of capital markets.

France’s biggest banks are preparing to pull out of Greece in the coming weeks, the latest large international business to abandon the country as it grapples with a debilitating recession and nagging questions about its future in the euro zone, the International Herald Tribune reported. Société Générale said Wednesday that it was in advanced discussions to sell its 99.1 percent stake in Geniki Bank, one of Greece’s biggest financial institutions, to Piraeus Bank of Greece.