The delivery of French Mistral-class warships to Russia would be "completely inappropriate" given the West's misgivings about Moscow's role in Ukraine, the United States said Tuesday.

"We don't think anyone should be providing arms to Russia," deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters, adding U.S. officials had voiced their concern over the deal in recent days to French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Italy on Tuesday condemned anti-Semitic slurs and violence at pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Europe and pledged to take firm action.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, France's Laurent Fabius and Italy's Federica Mogherini issued a joint statement in Brussels warning of a rise in anti-Jewish incidents in Europe during the bloody conflict in Gaza.

Five children aged 10 to 12 and their driver were killed Tuesday when the minibus they were travelling in crashed headlong into a truck coming the other way in France, authorities said.

Two other kids and the adult accompanying them were badly injured in the accident, which took place near Courteranges village in central France, a source close to the probe into the crash told Agence France Presse.

Two men and a woman have been arrested in a dawn raid in southern France on suspicion of recruiting fighters for Syria and planning attacks at home, police said.

The suspects were arrested in the city of Albi in a joint raid by the DGSI intelligence agency and RAID, an elite police special operations unit.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has blamed extremist groups for violent pro-Palestinian protests that took place last week in and near Paris.

A demonstration in the gritty northern Paris suburb of Sarcelles degenerated into violence Sunday with Jewish shops being looted and police using tear gas and rubber bullets against the crowd.

Two men and a woman have been arrested in a dawn raid in southern France on suspicion of recruiting fighters for Syria and planning attacks at home, police said.

The suspects were arrested in the city of Albi in a joint raid by the DGSI intelligence agency and RAID, an elite police special operations unit.

French President Francois Hollande Monday called for urgent measures to stop the suffering in Gaza after a phone conversation with U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.

"Everything must be done to put an immediate end to the suffering of the civil population in Gaza," a statement from Hollande's office said.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict stirs up passions the world over and never more so than in France where huge Muslim and Jewish communities, a heavy colonial past and societal divides create an explosive mix.

Like many European countries, France has been the scene of protests against the Jewish state's deadly Gaza offensive, but in Paris and the suburb town of Sarcelles, three rallies descended into violence, sending locals scurrying as protesters clashed with riot police.

A French rally against the deadly Israeli offensive in Gaza once again descended into chaos Sunday as protesters looted shops and riot police lobbed tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowds.

The demonstration in the northern Paris suburb of Sarcelles is the third to have deteriorated in the space of eight days in a country that counts the largest Muslim population in western Europe and a huge Jewish community.

France's prime minister on Sunday defended a controversial decision to ban a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Paris that went ahead anyway and descended into violence.

The rally Saturday in a northern district of the French capital was initially peaceful, but scores of men later clashed with riot police, throwing stones and bottles at security forces who responded with tear gas, sending locals and tourists scurrying.