France on Wednesday presented a bill aimed at strengthening anti-terrorism laws to stop increasing numbers of aspiring jihadists from traveling to fight in Syria.

The new bill, presented by Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to the council of ministers, came as a 48-year-old woman was charged under anti-terrorism laws after visiting Syria thrice where her son is fighting.

Rebel strongholds in eastern Ukraine braced for more fighting on Wednesday as European leaders prepared to pile new pressure on President Petro Poroshenko for a truce with pro-Russian separatists.

French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were expected to push the Western-backed leader on a ceasefire in three-way telephone talks but Kiev has until now shrugged off calls to halt an offensive that has reclaimed a string of key rebel towns.

The Vatican is seeking to resort to the United Nations Security Council to press Lebanese parties to carry out the presidential elections as soon as possible and end the deadlock.

The Vatican reportedly contacted the French Foreign Ministry urging it to pressure the Security Council to take action regarding the stalemate, An Nahar newspaper reported on Wednesday.

A French court Tuesday slapped a six-month suspended sentence and an 8,000-euro ($10,000) fine on a Norwegian heavy metal musician accused of inciting racial hatred in his blogs.

Kristian Vikernes, 41, was not present in court and neither was his lawyer as the verdict was delivered. He has denied posting racist blogs and said they were written by someone else.

France is set to beef up its anti-terrorism laws on Wednesday to prevent aspiring jihadists from fighting abroad amid concern over the the number of people travelling to Syria.

The new bill, part of which was seen by Agence France Presse, includes a ban on foreign travel of up to six months for individuals suspected of being radicalized, and gives authorities powers to temporarily confiscate and invalidate their passports.

France's defense minister warned on a visit to the Central African Republic on Tuesday that the strife-wracked country has no future unless rival factions agree to a ceasefire.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, who arrived in the capital Bangui on Monday, had lengthy private talks in the evening with transitional President Catherine Samba Panza, who was named by parliament to head the deeply poor nation in February.  

Violence in the Central African Republic is becoming "more serious" as a political deadlock inflames tensions between rival Christians and Muslims, France's defense minister warned as he left for the war-torn country.

A dozen French peacekeeping troops were wounded last week in clashes with armed groups and Jean-Yves Le Drian admitted that efforts to stabilize the country have stalled, six months after the election of a new transitional leader.

Nicolas Sarkozy's legal headaches intensified on Monday as it emerged that the former president is the subject of a fresh legal probe into the financing of his unsuccessful 2012 re-election bid.

Sarkozy, who was last week hit with charges including corruption and influence peddling in a case linked to his victorious 2007 campaign, is being investigated over whether financial penalties paid by his UMP party should have come out of his own pocket, judicial sources said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned Monday that there could be no military solution to the violence in Ukraine and urged progress toward a negotiated settlement of the conflict.

"Even if the situation in eastern Ukraine has shifted in favour of the Ukrainian security forces, there will be no purely military resolution of the conflict," Steinmeier said on a visit to Mongolia according to a statement from his ministry.

A Roma schoolgirl whose deportation from France sparked outrage has arrived in EU-member state Croatia after being granted new travel documents, her father said on Friday.

Leonarda Dibrani, her mother Xhemila and three brothers have been staying with an uncle in Sisak, southeast of Zagreb, the girl's father Resat Dibrani told Agence France Presse.