France on Friday roundly condemned the latest clampdown on Syrian dissidents in the city of Homs where pro-regime gunmen have killed dozens, saying the army should protect rather than "sow terror."

"France condemns with the most extreme firmness the continued repression carried out by the Syrian authorities which continue, in a headlong rush to nowhere, to daily arrest and kill their own people," foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told journalists.

Attitudes toward Muslims have become slightly more positive in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Russia compared with five years ago, although negative views between Muslim countries and the West persist on both sides, a Pew Center survey found.

The survey, by Pew's Global Attitudes Project, found majorities of Muslims surveyed in five of six Muslim-dominant countries and the Palestinian territories described non-Muslim Westerners as selfish and greedy.

An agreement signed between the government of French Premier Francois Fillon and that that of former PM Saad Hariri to provide the Lebanese army with missiles has been temporarily suspended, revealed French sources to the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat on Thursday.

They said that the French government suspended it in order to determine a clear position from Prime Minister Najib Miqati’s cabinet, which Paris believes was formed at Syria and Hizbullah’s bidding.

Military leaders from the rebel-held Libyan city of Misrata asked French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday for extra aid to defeat ruler Moammar Gadhafi, a member of their delegation said.

"Insurgent commanders came to explain to the head of state that the keys to Tripoli are in Misrata because Misrata's fighters are disciplined, battle hardened and they have a key asset: a military victory already won" against forces loyal to Gadhafi, Bernard-Henri Levy told Agence France Presse after the meeting.

France accepts Moammar Gadhafi could stay in Libya if he quits politics, under a ceasefire deal to end a conflict with rebels backed by Paris, the French foreign minister said on Wednesday.

"One of the possibilities being considered is that he stay in Libya but on the clear condition that he steps aside from Libyan political life," the minister, Alain Juppe, told LCI television.

France called Tuesday for Israel to act responsibly towards pro-Palestinian activists aboard a French yacht boarded by Israeli troops as it tried to break the blockade on the Gaza Strip.

"We've told the Israeli authorities over the last few days that if this French boat tried to break the blockade and if the Israeli authorities decided to stop it, we expect them to act with responsibility and moderation, respecting all our citizens' rights and allowing their prompt return to France," foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told journalists.

A large study in older veterans raises fresh concern about mild brain injuries that hundreds of thousands of troops have suffered from explosions in recent wars. Even concussions seem to raise the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease or other dementia later in life, researchers found.

Closed-head, traumatic brain injuries are a legacy of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Body armor is helping troops survive bomb blasts, but the long-term effects of their head injuries are unknown.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati received on Monday a cable from his French counterpart Francois Fillon in which he stressed France’s “absolute support” to the Lebanese government in confronting internal, regional, and international challenges.

He added that Lebanon should respect its international commitments and United Nations resolutions.

Libya is responsible for a deadly 1989 attack on a French airliner, Libyan former foreign minister Abdel Rahman Shalgam told the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat newspaper in an interview published on Monday.

"The Libyan security services blew up the plane. They believed that opposition leader Mohammed al-Megrief was on board, but after the plane was blown up, it was found that he was not on the plane," said Shalgam, who defected from Moammar Gadhafi's embattled regime earlier this year.

The role that France played in the release of the kidnapped seven Estonians was on Friday seen as a diplomatic and intelligence success for Paris on its Independence Day.

A French and Estonian team that transported the men from al-Taybeh village to the French embassy in Beirut on Thursday took all the measures to free the tourists without any coordination with Lebanese authorities.