A community of French earthworms has been discovered stealthily colonizing a farm in Ireland, possibly aided by global warming to thrive so far north of their natural habitat, a study said.

No clash seems to be looming as the French worms prefer to eat a different part of the soil as their Irish cousins, according to a report Wednesday in the Royal Society Journal Biology Letters.

Senior European and Iranian diplomats met in Turkey on Tuesday in a bid to seek common ground in the protracted negotiations on Tehran's disputed nuclear drive.

Iran's deputy chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri met EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton's deputy Helga Schmid at an undisclosed location in Istanbul for talks that were closed to the press, officials said.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Tuesday that he hoped that Spain would not need a full bailout, but if so, it could require a boost to Europe's rescue fund or European Central Bank action.

"I hope it will not be necessary to intervene again," Fabius told France 2 television. "If we have to intervene, it could be (via) an increase of firewalls... or interventions by the (European) central bank."

French President Francois Hollande on Sunday acknowledged his country's culpability in rounding up thousands of Jews to be sent to Nazi death camps during World War II.

"This was a crime committed in France and by France," Hollande said at a ceremony to mark the July 1942 detentions of over 13,000 foreign Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris for deportation to Auschwitz and other camps.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi received on Saturday a cable from French President Francois Hollande thanking him for congratulating him on his election as president and highlighting the depth of France’s ties with the Maronite church.

He added: “France will always stand by Lebanon against all challenges in a region that is witnesses several changes.”

World powers said a suicide bombing Wednesday that killed three top Syrian officials showed the urgent need for a political transition.

"The French government, without knowing the circumstances of this attack, has always condemned terrorism. That said, given the level of violence, this makes it even more necessary and urgent to find a political transition," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told the French Senate.

French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday pressed Russia over its stance on the conflict in Syria and described the continued bloodshed there as "unacceptable and intolerable."

The daily killings are creating "instability in the region that is detrimental to all," Hollande said at a press conference with visiting Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki.

French judicial authorities Wednesday launched a probe into television channel TF1's airing of recordings of self-proclaimed al-Qaida gunman Mohamed Merah negotiating with police shortly before he was shot dead.

A judicial source said an investigation had been opened into breaches of professional secrecy and into revealing details of an ongoing probe.

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki arrives in France on Tuesday for a visit aimed at rebuilding strained ties with the country's former colonial ruler in the wake of its popular revolution.

Keen to win diplomatic support and maintain strong trade relations, Marzouki meets President Francois Hollande on Tuesday and on Wednesday will address the National Assembly -- the first foreign leader to do so since European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in 2006.

An Afghan soldier has been sentenced to death for killing four French soldiers in a "green-on-blue" attack in Kapisa province in January, the defense ministry said Tuesday.

The incident, in which the soldier turned his gun on his French colleagues, prompted France to speed up its planned withdrawal of troops from NATO operations in Afghanistan.