The French Foreign Ministry voiced its concern on Friday with the alleged confessions of former minister and MP Michel Samaha, saying that they are “exceptionally dangerous”.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Vincent Floriani: “We hope the Lebanese judiciary would reveal the truth in the case.”

Syrian rebels vowed to fight on in Aleppo a day after being driven out of a key district under heavy shellfire, which was targeting other parts of the strategic city on Friday.

A rebel commander, Hossam Abu Mohammed, said his men were still fighting in parts of Aleppo's southwestern district of Salaheddin after most fled on Thursday under heavy bombing and advancing troops.

First Britain upset the French government by offering a home to any high earners seeking to flee a new top tax band, and now the U.S. state of Mississippi is making a bid to recruit wealthy exiles.

France's new Socialist leader President Francois Hollande plans to slap a tax of 75 percent on all income in excess of a million euros ($1.24 million), and territories with lower rates are hoping for a cash exodus.

An A310 airliner carrying a French military medical team destined to help refugees on the Joranian-Syrian border took off from Paris on Thursday.

With around 25 medical and 25 logistics staff on board, the plane was to stop off in Istres on France's Mediterranean coast to pick up 20 tons of medical aid before flying to Amman.

France on Wednesday confirmed the U.N. Security Council will hold a ministerial meeting on the Syria conflict on August 30 focused on the humanitarian situation in the country and its neighbors.

"Despite the divisions that have prevailed in recent months, the Security Council cannot remain silent about the tragedy being played out in Syria," French foreign ministry deputy spokesman Vincent Floreani said.

A French soldier was killed and another wounded Tuesday in a firefight during a joint operation with the Afghan army in Kapisa province, the French presidency and prime minister's office said.

A statement from Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault's office said the casualties were sustained "during a clash with insurgents" and that the wounded soldier was expected to survive.

Perched on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Lot River in southwestern France, the mediaeval village of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie has survived wars and invasions since the 13th century.

Now the picturesque hamlet is facing a new and potentially more dangerous threat: tourists.

France will seek to organize a ministerial-level U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria before the end of August, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement on Wednesday.

France currently holds the rotating chair of the Security Council and Fabius had said on Monday that Paris would try to organize a meeting before the end of this week.

Muslims attending morning prayers Wednesday were confronted by two pigs' heads in the entrance to their mosque in a French town where an Islamist gunman killed two paratroopers in March.

The incident in Montauban was described as a "racist provocation" by a watchdog which monitors anti-Islamic actions in France and as an "odious and blasphemous act" by the Montauban mayor, Brigitte Bareges.

The French military completed an important step in its accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan on Tuesday as it pulled out of a district outside Kabul.

Control of the district of Surobi, east of Kabul, passed to Afghan forces in April but the French formally left on Tuesday after a short flag-lowering ceremony.