DURING Friday prayers in Marseille, imam Mohamed Danouni called on the 80,000-strong Comoran community to refrain from giving in to anger following several protests that raised tensions in the Mediterranean port city.
Some 300 people joined a multi-faith prayer ceremony in Marseille on Friday in memory of the victims.
'This tragedy affects our whole country. Rest assured that all the people of Marseille share your pain,' said the mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin, who attended along with local Christian and Muslim leaders.
The ill-fated Yemenia flight left Paris via Marseille on Monday aboard a modern Airbus A330 but passengers switched in Sanaa to the older A310 jet to continue to Djibouti and Moroni.
Yemenia on Thursday announced it was suspending flights to and from Marseille, after throngs of Comoran protesters besieged its check-in counters.
Mr Sarkozy announced on Thursday that he would sit down with the grieving families next week to reassure them that they 'have a right to the truth.' France has mobilised vessels and search teams to take part in the recovery effort and is carrying out an investigation into the disaster. Mr Sarkozy insisted his government had done as much as it could.
'The plane left from a foreign country and belonged to a foreign company,' he said.
'Some measures were taken in France. But there is no question that we now need to have global regulations so that a company deemed dangerous cannot carry passengers anywhere in the world,' he said.
France's Comoran community had long denounced the Yemeni carrier's use of ageing Airbus A310 planes.
The 19-year-old Airbus involved in the crash was not formally barred from entering France but had not returned to the country since the defects were detected in 2007, said a French transport official on Friday.
Mr Bussereau had on Tuesday said the aircraft had been barred.
'The A310 was not formally barred in a legal sense but was under such de facto tight surveillance that it has not been seen on French territory since the check' by civil aviation controllers, said a spokesman for Mr Bussereau.
In July 2007 French authorities would not allow the plane to leave France without having been overhauled. -- AFP