President Francois Hollande began the first visit to Canada by a French leader in a quarter of a century on Sunday, flying in to the country's oil-rich west to drum up trans-Atlantic trade.

A new trade pact between Canada and the European Union is due to come into effect in coming years, eliminating 98 percent of tariffs on goods and services and potentially boosting commerce by a fifth.

The Lebanese army will be able to purchase French weapons under a $3 billion deal financed by Riyadh at the beginning of the year after Saudi and French officials ink the contract on Tuesday, the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat reported.

According to the newspaper published on Monday, Saudi and French officials will sign the deal at the Royal Palace in Riyadh after an almost 11-month delay.

Russia endorsed a crushing victory for Ukraine's pro-Moscow rebel leadership after controversial polls on Sunday that the EU slammed as a "new obstacle" for peace in the country's strife-torn east.

The swift acceptance of the results by Russia looked certain to spark a diplomatic firestorm, with a fresh round of Western sanctions against the Kremlin now increasingly on the cards.

Protesters in several parts of France gathered in a sometimes tense atmosphere Sunday in memory of an eco-activist who was killed last weekend during a demonstration against a controversial dam project.

The gatherings in Paris and on the site of the Sivens project in the southwestern region of Tarn came a day after similar protests erupted in violence, leaving several demonstrators and police injured.

The Burkina Faso army seized control of the national television headquarters and the capital's main square on Sunday in defiance of calls by the international community and thousands of demonstrators to hand over power to civilian rule.

Troops moved in to Place de la Nation in Ouagadougou, setting up barricades and removing thousands of people who had gathered to denounce the army's power grab after the turbulent ouster of president Blaise Compaore on Friday.

Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine hold controversial leadership elections on Sunday that Kiev and the West have refused to recognize and which threaten to deepen the international crisis over the conflict. 

Fighting raged across the region on the eve of the vote, with seven Ukrainian fighters killed and intensive shelling at the ruins of Donetsk airport, a key battleground between the rebels and government forces.

Violent protests broke out on Saturday in two French cities against alleged police brutality, leaving at least six injured.

Officers fired rubber bullets as demonstrators hurled bottles of acid in the western city of Nantes.

Foreign jihadists from more than 80 countries have flocked to fight in Iraq and Syria on an "unprecedented scale", according to extracts of a U.N. report published by Britain's Guardian newspaper on Friday.

Around 15,000 people have traveled to fight alongside Islamic State (IS) and other hardcore militant groups from "countries that have not previously faced challenges relating to al-Qaida," said the report.

Morocco said Thursday it has arrested two jihadists who were planning to attack banks and multinational companies in the North African country and in France.

An interior ministry statement said a Frenchman and a Franco-Moroccan arrested on Monday had also been planning to join the Islamic State jihadist group.

Fighting between French military forces and jihadists continued overnight in northern Mali where soldiers are carrying out a large-scale operation, the army said Thursday after a staff sergeant was killed.

Thomas Dupuy, a 32-year-old Afghanistan veteran who belonged to a commando parachute group, was killed in violent clashes with hardline Islamists in Mali's Tigharghar mountain range early Wednesday, as part of an operation aimed at stemming the return of jihadists in the north.