The United States said Monday Syria's parliamentary election "borders on ludicrous" as the regime of President Bashar Assad continues its violent crackdown on its people.

"It's not really possible to hold credible elections in a climate where basic human rights are being denied to the citizens and the government is continuing to carry out daily assaults ...on its own citizens," State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said.

The White House said Monday that the alliance between France and the United States remained as strong as it had been before the election of new Socialist president Francois Hollande.

Hollande will meet President Barack Obama next week in one of the first acts of a presidency framed by conflicts with Washington over Afghan war policy and other European leaders over how to tackle the euro crisis.

French president-elect Francois Hollande said on Monday that he would reveal his choice for prime minister on May 15 when he is due to be inaugurated.

"You will have the name of the prime minister on May 15," Hollande told reporters as he left his election headquarters.

Gunmen in northern Nigeria's Kaduna state on Monday shot dead a Lebanese man and his Nigerian driver and abducted another Lebanese national, the state police spokesman said.

"The gunmen attacked the construction bus in which they were traveling, shot dead a Lebanese and the Nigerian driver and kidnapped another Lebanese," Aminu Lawan told Agence France Presse on telephone from Kaduna city.

Bedouin tribesmen in the Sinai peninsula on Monday briefly detained 10 Fijians from the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), which is charged with monitoring peace between Egypt and Israel.

One of the tribesmen told Agence France Presse they had seized the men because they were seeking the release of Bedouin prisoners held by Egypt.

Taking over from a supermodel should not be a problem for Valerie Trierweiler, who has plenty of glamour of her own, but making state visits abroad as France's first unmarried first lady just might.

There is some speculation as to whether Trierweiler, whose partner Francois Hollande was elected Socialist president on Sunday, will marry her man before he gets the keys to the Elysee Palace on May 15.

Syria's foreign minister said on Monday that his government was "facilitating" the work of U.N. observers deployed to monitor a ceasefire, which both sides have been accused of violating, state media reported.

"We continue to facilitate the work of the U.N. team," Walid Muallem told chief U.N. observer Major General Robert Mood, according to state news agency SANA.

The uprising against Bashar al-Assad's regime, and the subsequent killings and reprisals, has fractured the village of Azzara along sectarian lines, turning peaceful neighbors into sworn enemies.

Sunni Turkmen living in the hills of Azzara, in central Homs province, and Alawite residents of the village below, had seemingly coexisted since Ottoman times. Today, a wall of fear separates the two sects.

Israel's Supreme Court on Monday ordered two Palestinians to leave their properties in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, ruling that the properties were owned by Jews, their lawyer told Agence France Presse.

Lawyer Mohammed Dahleh said the court had rejected his clients' appeals, and ruled that Ghazi Zalum's house and Ismail Wazwaz's shop had been owned by Jews in the period before the establishment of Israel in 1948, with the properties later falling into Jordan's hands.

Germany coach Joachim Loew on Monday named uncapped teenage midfielder Julian Draxler and goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen in his provisional squad for Euro 2012.

The two surprises in Loew's initial 27-man squad are Schalke 04's 18-year-old Draxler and Moenchengladbach's shot-stopper ter Stegen, 20, for the European Championships to be hosted by Poland and the Ukraine.