Five Swiss people died and two more were injured on Thursday when their helicopter crashed in France, only a few meters away from a house, French officials said.

The EC130 helicopter came down in the garden of a suburban house near the city of Montbeliard, some 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the Swiss border, French police said.

Head of al-Mustaqbal Movement and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri is expected to meet with French President Francois Hollande next week, the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat reported on Thursday.

According to the daily, the meeting, which will be held on Tuesday in Paris, will tackle the ongoing political deadlock in Lebanon.

Pro-Russian insurgents launched a fresh assault Thursday on an airport held by isolated Ukrainian forces as a month-old truce came under renewed strain and calls grew for the Kremlin to help halt the bloody revolt.

Ukraine also dispatched its energy chiefs to Brussels in a bid to convince the European Union to back up Kiev at crunch talks with Russia on the latest energy war with its westward-leaning but effectively bankrupt neighbor.

The French Senate on Wednesday elected a member of the opposition as its speaker, after the upper house made a stinging swing to the right in weekend elections.

The election of Gerard Larcher of the right-wing UMP as Senate head puts him in a powerful position, as he would constitutionally be first in line to take over as head of state should leftwing President Francois Hollande resign, fall ill or be removed from office.

Three people were charged on Wednesday over a scandal relating to the funding of former French leader Nicolas Sarkozy's 2012 presidential campaign.

It was the first time charges had been pressed in the so-called Bygmalion affair and came only two weeks after Sarkozy made a triumphant return to front-line French politics.

The French military said Wednesday it would deploy three more fighter jets and a warship to the Middle East to boost support to Iraqi forces fighting Islamic State jihadists.

The warplanes will be sent to France's Al Dhafra military base in the United Arab Emirates, from where it has launched two rounds of air strikes as part of a U.S.-led coalition battling IS fighters.

France said Wednesday it will beef up its military deployment in the fight against Islamic State jihadists in Iraq being waged by a U.S.-led coalition.

"The president has decided to reinforce the military presence engaged" in the battle, said a statement from the presidency, without specifying what this would amount to.

Algeria has identified suspects in the kidnapping and beheading of French tourist Herve Gourdel, the justice minister said Tuesday, as the North Africa country widened its probe into the brutal execution.

Gourdel was seized on September 21 by Jund al-Khilifa, or "Soldiers of the Caliphate," a group linked to the Islamic State jihadists, while trekking in a national park in eastern Algeria.

France on Tuesday declared a state of natural disaster in about 60 southern towns hit by torrential downpours, which also left the Mediterranean city of Montpellier under water.

Floodwater streamed down roads and highways, engulfing cars as the Lez river burst its banks in the seaside capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon region after it was lashed by record-breaking downpours.

Poland on Monday said a possible French deal to supply Russia with warships was making it difficult for Warsaw to choose French suppliers for its planned missile shield.

"I can't hide the fact that the Mistral (warship contract) is not helping us make positive decisions" about French missile shield suppliers, Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said in an interview published in the Rzeczpospolita daily.