France on Tuesday said it had transferred 10 million euros ($13 million) in budget assistance to the Palestinian Authority and urged the United States and Gulf countries to also send more aid.

The assistance is aimed at helping the Palestinian Authority in its "delicate financial situation", French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said in a statement.

President Nicolas Sarkozy pulled ahead of his Socialist rival for the first time in France's election race Tuesday according to a poll conducted after the right-winger took a strident anti-EU turn.

The survey forecast Sarkozy would lead in the first round but still lose out to Francois Hollande in the second, but it was a symbolic boost for the leader who had consistently trailed his rival for the past five months.

France is to reduce the strength of its U.N. peacekeeping contingent in southern Lebanon by 400, just under a third of its troops there, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.

A statement from the ministry said the decision had been taken in agreement with the United Nations and with Lebanon following a strategic review of the mission of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday chartered TGV high-speed trains and fleets of buses to ferry in supporters from across France for a mass rally aimed at boosting his flagging re-election bid.

Up to 60,000 people were expected at the rally in an exhibition hall at Villepinte north of Paris, which the president hopes will turn the tide against his front-running Socialist rival with just over a month to go before election day.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe implicitly slammed Russia's stance on a draft U.N. resolution on Syria on Saturday, saying there were no grounds to demand a simultaneous halt to violence.

"Currently any possibility of reaching an agreement over a Security Council accord is blocked," Juppe, who will be in New York on Monday to discuss the draft, said at the close of EU foreign ministers' talks in the Danish capital.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea praised on Saturday French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe’s recent message to Christians in the east, saying that it reflects France’s history and values.

He said in a cable to the minister: “Some tyrants’ claims that they are protecting Christians are in fact a cover for forcing the Christians to submit to their will.”

China said Friday it is sending an envoy to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and France to explain its position on Syria, after Beijing called for an end to the year-long conflict in the Middle East country.

China unveiled a six-point peace plan last Sunday, calling for an immediate end to the bloody violence and for dialogue between the regime of President Bashar Assad and the opposition.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul indicated Thursday that France will be invited to the next meeting of the "Friends of Syria" to be held in Istanbul despite a slump in ties over a genocide bill.

A distinction must be made between bilateral relations and an international conference," Gul said on a visit to Tunisia, after a Turkish diplomat said Ankara had not decided whether to invite France to the conference.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy admitted publicly Thursday he will quit politics if he loses next month's election, as his Socialist challenger pressed home his attacks on the incumbent's record.

"I tell you, yes," he replied when asked on a television program if he would withdraw from public life if, as opinion polls predict, he loses to Socialist Francois Hollande in the two-round vote in April and May.

World powers said Thursday that mooted upcoming talks with Iran focused on its nuclear program must be "serious", without pre-conditions and produce "concrete results."

"We call on Iran to enter, without pre-conditions, into a sustained process of serious dialogue, which will produce concrete results," said a statement on behalf of the United States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany, known as the P5+1.