France

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Tuesday that employers can ban staff from wearing visible religious symbols, including headscarves. "An internal rule of an undertaking [firm] which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination," the court said.

The ECJ was ruling on a case dating to 2003 when Samira Achbita, a Muslim, was employed as a receptionist by G4S security services in Belgium. At the time, the company had an "unwritten rule" that employees should not wear any political, religious or philosophical symbols at work, the ECJ said.

The number of cross-border workers commuting to Switzerland for jobs has risen by more than a quarter since 2011, the Swiss statistics office (BFS) said on Thursday.

At the end of 2016, 318,500 cross-border workers were active in Switzerland, an increase of 11,300 over the previous year. Lake Geneva (37.2%), northwest Switzerland (22.8%) and the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino (20.2%) remain top destinations for commuters from across the border. In the same five-year period the total number of working people in Switzerland (including residents and non-residents) rose by 7.8%, to 5.1 million.

PSA Group is discussing a potential acquisition of rival European carmaker Opel from General Motors, a spokesman for the French automaker said on Tuesday.

"PSA confirms that it is exploring a number of strategic initiatives with GM with the aim of increasing its profitability and operating efficiency, including a potential acquisition of Opel," company spokesman Bertrand Blaise said.

Benoit Hamon secured the French Socialist Party’s presidential nomination on Sunday, beating rival Manuel Valls. Initial results gave Hamon 58 percent of the vote and Valls only 42.

Hamon was the more left-wing choice of the two politicians. He supports a universal basic income and wants to reduce the traditional work week to 35 hours. He has also spoken in support of legalizing cannabis and increased investment in renewable energy. Valls, on the other hand, has called himself a more "Clintonite" leftist with a strong belief in pragmatism and individual responsibility.

The top boss of HSBC, Stuart Gulliver, has said it is planning to move some staff from London to Paris following Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Speaking from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Gulliver said in an interview Bloomberg Television that "about 1,000 jobs which are carrying out activities which are covered by European legislation… would probably need, in our case, to go to France".

While Gulliver had in the past already hinted at such a switch of investment banking jobs, his comments appeared more precise as he suggested France would take precedence over other EU nations.

Italy’s Luxottica and France’s Essilor on Monday announced they have agreed on a 50-billion-euro merger deal to create an eyewear giant with over 140,000 employees and sales in some 150 countries.

The deal, one of Europe’s largest cross-border tie-ups, brings together Luxottica, the world’s top spectacles maker with brands such as Oakley and Ray-Ban, with Essilor, the world’s leading manufacturer of ophthalmic lenses.
By merging, the companies would have jointly reported net earnings of over 15 billion euros, based on 2015 annual results posted by the two companies, and a net combined operating profit EBITDA of about 3.5 billion euros.

French investigators will probe Renault over suspected "cheating" in emissions tests of diesel motors, the Paris prosecutors office said today.

Renault shares fell sharply on the news, which comes about two months after the government passed to the prosecutor the findings of an investigation by its consumer fraud agency.

Renault insisted its engines complied "with French and European regulations". "Renault vehicles are all and have always been homologated in accordance with the laws and regulations. They are compliant with the applicable standards. "Renault vehicles are not equipped with cheating software affecting anti-pollution systems."

Swiss bank UBS has failed to persuade the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to overturn an order that it must post €1.1 billion bail in a French case about whether it helped clients avoid tax.

UBS had argued before the ECHR that the record-setting bond, a guarantee against an eventual fine upon conviction, violated its right to the presumption of innocence and it took the unusual step of going to the human rights court in 2015.

The Strasbourg court said on Thursday it had unanimously rejected UBS’s application to challenge the order.