France's Interior Minister Laurent Nunez admitted Monday that the police "lost control" in some cities during violent protests that erupted in cities across the country at the weekend.

He said there had been a "lack of anticipation" in preparations and that he had tendered his resignation to President Emmanuel Macron "because I felt responsible for everything that happened." Macron did not accept his resignation.

From his shop in south Lebanon near the Israeli border, Mark Diab says life in his village will be turned upside down when a decades-long United Nations peacekeeping force pulls out next year.

"UNIFIL isn't just business, to us it's family," said Diab, 59, whose sister is among residents of Ibl al-Saqi who have married peacekeepers from the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon over the years. She now lives in Spain.

President Joseph Aoun has met visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot in Baabda, saying he would welcome any effort to prevent a security vacuum in the south if U.N. peacekeepers withdraw as planned at the end of the year.

Barrot is in Beirut for a two-day visit to discuss "mechanisms for an international presence" in the south -- the scene of repeated conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah -- after the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) expires.

France woke up Sunday to devastated streets after clashes between police and protesters, mass looting and fires erupted nationwide as marches against rising costs of living degenerated into "extreme" violence.

Saudi Arabia said that it had intercepted a fresh wave of incoming drones, as its ally Egypt weighed sending the kingdom help in defending against repeated attacks from Yemen's Houthis.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Saturday said an oil tanker was on fire in the Strait of Hormuz after hitting a mine in the waterway at the heart of the Middle East war.

A tanker was struck by an "unknown projectile" off Saudi Arabia's Gulf coast, forcing the evacuation of its crew, a maritime monitoring agency said on Saturday.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian denied that Tehran sought nuclear weapons, expressed readiness for dialogue and condemned U.S. sanctions during talks with Georgia's prime minister.

Qatar will help revive Lebanon's ailing energy sector and solve its chronic problems in providing reliable electricity, the Lebanese and Qatari prime ministers said Friday.

Mainland Spain sizzled in its warmest September since records began in 1961, with exceptional heat effectively making it another summer month, national weather agency AEMET said on Friday.