British Foreign Secretary William Hague indicated on Thursday he would decide within days whether to officially recognize the new Syrian opposition after "encouraging" talks with its leaders in London.

Hague said he had pressed Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib and his two deputies, who are on their first visit to a Western capital since a united Syrian opposition was formed last weekend, on the need to be inclusive and to respect human rights.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati's visit to Paris on Monday falls within France's keenness to maintain stability in Lebanon and to continue discussions over the necessary measures that would resolve the political crisis in the country, media reports said.

Diplomatic sources told the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa newspaper published on Friday that Miqati's visit isn't to express France's support to his cabinet, which is confronting strong calls by the March 14 opposition to step down.

After accusing the French of being in "denial" during the presidential election campaign in late March, the British weekly The Economist now says that France is "the time-bomb at the heart of Europe."

"The crisis could hit as early as next year," the magazine warned in a cover story to appear on Friday with the sub-title: "Why France could become the biggest danger to Europe’s single currency."

France's prime minister assured a German audience on Thursday that his country is committed to getting its debt under control, and said that is essential to preserving France's sovereignty.

Jean-Marc Ayrault's first visit in Germany since taking office in May comes as concerns grow that France's economy, the eurozone's second-largest, is weakening just as the government has to slash spending to reduce its deficit. France is Berlin's most important ally in fighting Europe's debt crisis.

A jury including the literary provocateur Michel Houellebecq on Wednesday handed out a prize dubbed the "Goncourt for pets" to a novel about a hunt gone wrong.

"The Hunting Party" by 42-year-old Agnes Desarthe tells of a young man who is injured during a hunt, and while he awaits rescue falls into "conversation" with a wild rabbit about the meaning of life -- both animal or human.

France will raise the issue of excluding defensive weapons from the current arms embargo on Syria to help rebels fighting President Bashar Assad's regime, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Thursday.

"For the moment, there is an embargo, so there are no arms being delivered from the European side. The issue... will no doubt be raised for defensive arms," Fabius told RTL radio.

The French Senate approved Wednesday the so-called Nutella amendment that would quadruple the tax on palm oil, a key ingredient in the chocolate spread, to discourage consumption of the oil rich in saturated fat.

The amendment which would take the tax on palm oil from around 100 euros ($128) now to 400 euros was approved by a vote of 212 to 133 despite protests from major palm producing nations Malaysia and Ivory Coast.

The Musee d'Orsay will on Friday open a major exhibition of paintings from the 19th century at the new modern art museum in China's commercial hub of Shanghai, museum officials said Wednesday.

Many of the 87 paintings by artists in the French Naturalism movement, including works by Gustave Courbet and Jean-Francois Millet, are being shown in China for the first time, exhibition organizers told a news conference.

A meeting of the Syrian opposition hosted by the Qatari capital amounted to a "declaration of war," the country's deputy foreign minister, Faisal Muqdad, said on Wednesday, describing France's decision to recognize the opposition alliance as "immoral.”

"The Doha meeting was a declaration of war. These people (the opposition) don't want to solve the issue peacefully through the mechanisms of the U.N.," Muqdad told Agence France Presse.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati is set to travel to Paris on Monday on a three-day visit to meet with French President Francois Hollande, his counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault and several other senior officials.

According to al-Akhbar newspaper published on Wednesday, Miqati will head an official delegation to the French capital and is expected to ink four joint cooperation agreements.