France on Thursday unveiled plans for a 35-billion-euro national loan to fund investments that will propel growth even as it faces European demands to rein in its ballooning deficit.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan for a carbon tax on fuel threatened Tuesday to backfire as critics slammed it as unfair and his own camp fretted it will anger voters already hit by the crisis.

France's Sarkozy pushes ahead with contested, ambitious plan to tax carbon emissions. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is determined to press ahead with a controversial plan to tax carbon emissions by individuals and businesses, ignoring opposition from voters of all political stripes in his bid to claim a leading role in global efforts to stem climate change.

France's Sarkozy pushes ahead with contested, ambitious plan to tax carbon emissions. French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tax carbon dioxide emissions by households and businesses, a measure aimed at helping France slash its output greenhouse gases over the coming decades ? but viewed with skepticism by many.

France's government was set to consider taxing carbon emissions as part of a drive to fight global warming, after experts handed in a report on the issue on Tuesday.

PARIS (Reuters) - France should aim to introduce a tax on carbon dioxide emissions by 2010 to help fight global climate change, a panel advising the government said on Tuesday.

A French experts' panel is to recommend introducing a carbon tax on fuel from January 2010, as part of a government drive to slash global warming emissions, the group's head said on Wednesday.