Russia on Friday warned France of "serious" consequences unless Paris delivers by the end of this month a Mistral-class assault warship whose handover has been delayed by concerns over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis, a report said.

"We are preparing for different scenarios. We are waiting until the end of the month, then we will lodge serious claims," the state news agency RIA Novosti quoted an anonymous high-ranking Moscow source as saying.

The clouds over Europe appeared to lift slightly in the third quarter as its two biggest economies both narrowly escaped a new recession, official data showed on Friday.

In Germany, Europe's economic powerhouse, gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 0.1 percent in the period from July to September, after shrinking by 0.1 percent in the preceding three months, the federal statistics office said.

The first French jihadist to stand trial after returning from Syria, where his nicotine cravings got the better of him, was sentenced to seven years in jail Thursday.

Flavien Moreau traveled to the conflict-ridden country at the end of 2012 but says he only managed to stay "a dozen days" as he was unable to stand a strict ban on smoking imposed by the Islamist militants he was with.

A French delegation is expected to visit Beirut this week for further talks with the Lebanese army command on the purchase of French weapons under a Saudi grant.

France and Saudi Arabia signed the agreement last week for Paris to provide the Lebanese military with the $3 billion worth of weapons paid for by Riyadh.

France and Tunisia will cooperate in attempts to prevent citizens joining thousands of their nationals fighting alongside jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria, Paris' interior minister said Monday.

Bernard Cazeneuve, on a visit to Tunis for talks with his counterpart Lofti Ben Jeddou, said the two discussed joint counter-terror measures against battle-hardened nationals "who could return to our countries and present a danger."

The latest scandal to rock French politics has sucked in both discredited mainstream parties and is only likely to benefit the jubilant far-right leader Marine Le Pen, experts say.

The new "affair" has all the hallmarks of a juicy French political drama: alleged attempts to influence an independent judiciary, shady backroom deals and cozy relationships between the political elite.

The chances of Army chief General Jean Qahwaji of becoming president have increased with his recent visit to Saudi Arabia, reported the Kuwaiti daily al-Seyassah on Sunday.

Arab diplomatic sources told the daily that his visit to the kingdom, where a number of French officials were present, to sign the Saudi grant to the Lebanese army “opened the last blocked doors to his election as president.”

The father of a French jihadist who became an expert bomb-maker and was likely killed in U.S. air strikes in Syria has said his son wanted to "die a martyr."

David Daoud Drugeon, 25, is thought to have been traveling in a car in Idlib province when a drone strike hit the vehicle and likely killed him and the driver, a U.S. official and media reports said Thursday.

U.S. air raids in Syria overnight targeted and likely killed a French bombmaker who was a key figure in an al-Qaeda offshoot accused of plotting attacks on the West, a defense official said Thursday. 

David Drugeon was a Muslim convert suspected of working with Al-Qaeda veterans in what Washington calls the Khorasan group, which American officials say is a dangerous militant outfit planning to attack the United States and other Western countries.

French Socialist lawmakers are preparing to submit a motion to parliament asking the government to recognize Palestine as a state, sources said Tuesday, weeks after British MPs passed a similar vote.

The planned move follows the collapse of peace talks between Israel and Palestinian territories and this year's conflict in Gaza in which more than 2,000 Palestinians and dozens of Israelis were killed.