Credit Agricole said it would make almost 1.9 billion euros ($2.37 billion) available to French local governments with the help of its insurance arm, which will finance most of the loans through investment funds, Reuters reported. The 1.875 billion euros arrangement is the latest sign of how capital-starved banks are looking to do deals with insurers, many of whom are looking for new ways to invest funds after being hit with a massive drop in investment returns since 2008.

Two statements last week following the four-way summit in Rome between the German, French, Italian and Spanish leaders capture the essence of the euro crisis and show why a solution is as far away as ever, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Debt-burdened French poultry group Doux, which collapsed into administration earlier this month, is seeking a buyer to take over the entire business and ensure its survival, one of its administrators said on Friday, Reuters reported. Regis Vaillot said in a statement that the administrators wanted to avoid a breakup of the company and would also remain open to a possible refinancing of the group, which is 80 percent owned by its founder, Charles Doux.

Air France announced more than 5,000 job losses under a cost-cutting plan on Thursday, creating a political headache for new President Francois Hollande, Reuters reported. The cuts at the French flag carrier, part of the loss-making Air France-KLM Group, come as the world's airline industry grapples with limited growth prospects, rising costs and fallout from the euro zone debt crisis. But Hollande's Socialist government, in place since last month, has pledged to counter rising unemployment by making it prohibitively expensive for companies to lay off workers.

France is pressing the EU to adopt a financial stability package to stem the eurozone crisis, believing negative market reaction to the €100bn bailout of Spain’s banks shows the need for more comprehensive action, the Financial Times reported. Ahead of the EU summit due on June 28, Paris is set to propose a package of measures to put the European Central Bank in charge of bank supervision and to use the European Stability Mechanism, the new €500bn eurozone rescue fund due to come into force next month, to recapitalise banks directly.

Crédit Agricole SA is making contingency plans to abandon its Greek bank or merge it with a conglomerate of domestic banks in the event of Greece leaving the euro zone, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans, The Wall Street Journal reported. The admission offers the starkest evidence yet of international companies preparing for the worst in Greece, just days ahead of elections that could set it on a path to leave the currency union.

France, Belgium and Luxembourg, which own Dexia, the lender that is being broken up, have agreed to boost state guarantees to the ailing bank by €10bn to €55bn, it was disclosed on Wednesday, the Financial Times reported. The decision followed Monday’s meeting between Pierre Moscovici, France’s new finance minister, and his Belgian counterpart, Steven Vanackere, in Brussels. The European commission “temporarily approved” the €10bn increase in guarantees “in order to preserve financial stability”.

French President Francois Hollande's plan to lower the minimum retirement age to 60 from 62 is fully financed through higher payroll charges, the government said. The cost in the first full year is €1.1 billion, peaking at €3 billion in 2017, the government's spokeswoman, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, said after the weekly Cabinet meeting, the Irish Times reported. The change, which takes effect on November 1st and involves those who started work as teenagers, will add no more than 110,000 people a year to the retirement rolls, the government said in a statement.

European Union and French officials squared off against Germany on Monday over how best to help Spain’s ailing banks, drawing lines in the debate over the latest challenge to the euro zone, the International Herald Tribune reported. Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, and Pierre Moscovici, the French finance minister, offered cautious endorsement at a news conference in Brussels for the idea of letting Europe’s bailout funds inject money directly into troubled banks.

Debt-burdened French poultry group Doux collapsed into administration on Friday after failing to reach an agreement with bankers, putting at risk more than 3,000 jobs, Reuters reported. "A judicial administrator has been selected who will help the company's management to draw up a plan to keep operating, in France, that will support jobs and the survival of the company," Doux, one of the world's largest poultry exporters, said in a statement. "The Doux Group will immediately put together a plan to help strategic suppliers and breeders so that they do not experience any difficulty," it said.