Paris - France yesterday denounced as absurd Yugoslav government allegations that French spies in Serbia had planned to assassinate President Slobodan Milosevic. "These allegations are groundless," a French Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
The Yugoslav Information Secretary, Mr Goran Matic, said on Thursday that his country's security service had arrested five men who belonged to an organisation called Spider, which took instructions from Paris.
Serbian police arrested the head of the heating plant in opposition-controlled Nis yesterday after he cut off heating to the town saying fuel had run out, city officials said. Milosevic supporters accused the city government of switching off the heat as a political stunt, as oil trucks sent by the EU were held up at the frontier for a third day.