His popularity sliding less than four months after being elected, Socialist President Francois Hollande is heading into a difficult autumn that will test public patience over France's flagging economy.

With divisions also starting to show in his inexperienced government, analysts say Hollande is looking vulnerable as he prepares to push through a deficit-cutting budget and face down union anger over mounting job losses.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday welcomed a decision by French prosecutors to open a murder inquiry into claims the late Yasser Arafat may have been poisoned.

The probe was announced on Tuesday, a month after his widow Suha and daughter Zawra launched legal action in France following reports that experts had found traces of the radioactive substance polonium on Arafat's clothes.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius admitted Wednesday that plans to create buffer zones in Syria were "very complicated" and would require the imposition of partial no-fly zones.

Fabius said people displaced by the country's conflict needed to be protected through the creation of buffer zones but that logistical and diplomatic questions were complicating the issue.

French prosecutors have opened a murder inquiry into Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's 2004 death near Paris, sources close to the matter told Agence France Presse Tuesday.

The probe comes after Arafat's family launched legal action in France last month over claims the veteran Palestinian leader died of radioactive polonium poisoning.

French President Francois Hollande warned Monday that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime would be a legitimate reason for a foreign intervention.

"We with our allies remain very watchful to prevent the use of chemical weapons by the regime, which would be for the international community a legitimate cause for direct intervention," Hollande said in a speech to French diplomats.

French Greens reacted angrily on Monday after a government minister described nuclear power as the "energy of the future," casting doubt on a commitment to slash the country's number of reactors.

The Greens, minority partners in France's Socialist-led administration, lashed out at Industrial Recovery Minister Arnaud Montebourg for comments in which he lauded France's nuclear industry as a "tremendous asset."

Venezuelan firefighters battled Monday to extinguish a devastating fire at the country's main oil refinery as President Hugo Chavez slammed reports that poor maintenance was to blame.

The Venezuelan leader promised an investigation into Saturday's tragedy that left 41 people dead -- a gas leak is the suspected cause -- and three days of national mourning were declared ahead of his trip to the Amuay refinery, in the country's far north.

Lebanese-French national Mohammed Hassan Sabra was released on Saturday in exchange for ransom, media reports said.

Unknown assailants kidnapped Sabra on Friday in the Bekaa town of Ferzol from the vegetable market.

France suffered a fresh outbreak of urban unrest early Saturday that saw three officers wounded when police came under attack by a crowd firing shotguns and lobbing petrol bombs.

Two of the officers were wounded by shotgun pellets and the third by a firework used as a rocket in the incident that began late Friday in the Grigny suburb of Paris, police said.

French President Francois Hollande said Saturday after talks with the Greek prime minister that crisis-wracked Greece must stay in the Eurozone but first needed to prove it is determined to slash its budget deficit.

"Greece is in the Eurozone and Greece must stay in the Eurozone," Hollande said at a joint press conference with Antonis Samaras at the Elysee palace.