French prosecutors on Monday opened a preliminary investigation into accusations that disgraced ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn took part in a gang rape in the United States.

Prosecutors in Lille, where Strauss-Kahn and three others have been charged in a pimping case, said the probe centred on an incident "that could be described as gang rape" that took place in Washington, DC in December 2010.

France's President Francois Hollande used his White House debut Friday to restate his intention to get French combat troops home from Afghanistan this year -- breaking with NATO's 2014 schedule.

Hollande met U.S. President Barack Obama for the first time since taking office three days ago, ahead of a testing weekend of international summits, with G8 leaders at Camp David and NATO chiefs at a 61-nation gathering in Chicago.

In most developed countries, children with autism are usually sent to school where they get special education classes. But in France, they are more often sent to a psychiatrist where they get talk therapy meant for people with psychological or emotional problems.

Things are slowly changing, but not without resistance. Last month, a report by France's top health authority concluded there was no agreement among scientists about whether psychotherapy works for autism, and it was not included in the list of recommended treatments.

French leader Francois Hollande's new Socialist government got down to work on Thursday with the first order of business a symbolic 30 percent pay cut for the president and ministers.

With the cabinet set to hold its first meeting, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the top item on the agenda would be the salary cut, a Hollande campaign promise that the premier said was about "setting an example".

The Arab-speaking media was in a quandary after the appointment of Jean-Marc Ayrault as France's new prime minster on Tuesday -- about how to mention the head of the French government without causing offense.

Transcribed into Arabic from the French pronunciation of his name, "Ayrault" refers to the male sexual organ in several Arabic dialects.

France unveiled President Francois Hollande's new government on Wednesday, with former prime minister Laurent Fabius, 65, named foreign minister and Pierre Moscovici, 54, finance minister.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, a 64-year-old local politician from Brittany, was named defense minister, while Manuel Valls, a free-market modernizer seen as on the right of the Socialist Party, was named interior minister.

French President Francois Hollande's new prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, arrived at the Matignon Palace in Paris on his first day of work Wednesday and began drawing up a cabinet list.

Ayrault, a 62-year-old former German teacher, lawmaker, and longtime Hollande ally, arrived with his wife Brigitte Terrien and said farewell to former president Nicolas Sarkozy's premier Francois Fillon before getting to work.

Lightning hit French President Francois Hollande's plane as he flew for Berlin on his first trip abroad as head of state on Tuesday, forcing him to turn back, the defense ministry said.

The presidential Falcon 7X "was hit by lightning" and returned to Villacoublay military airport outside Paris, a defense ministry spokesman told Agence France Presse.

The United States and 18 other countries have started in Jordan what was described as the largest military exercises in the Middle East in 10 years, focusing on "irregular warfare," top officers said on Tuesday.

"Yesterday we began to apply the skills that we have developed over the last weeks in an irregular warfare scenario ... They will last for approximately the coming two weeks," Major General Ken Tovo, head of the U.S. Special Operations Forces, told reporters in Amman.

Francois Hollande was sworn in as France's first Socialist president since 1995 on Tuesday at a solemn ceremony overshadowed by the debt crisis threatening to unravel the eurozone.

Hours later Hollande named Jean-Marc Ayrault, the head of the Socialist bloc in parliament and mayor of Nantes, as his prime minister.