Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for the end of Europe's visa-free Schengen area and the creation of a Franco-German economic bloc at the heart of the eurozone, in an opinion piece published Thursday.

As France prepares to vote in EU-wide elections on Sunday, Sarkozy took aim at the Schengen agreement which has made the free movement of people and goods possible in 26 European countries.

Russia will veto a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that calls for bringing Syria before the International Criminal Court, Moscow's ambassador said Wednesday.

Vitaly Churkin dismissed the French initiative, which is to be put to a vote on Thursday, as a "publicity stunt" and said it would undermine efforts to find a political solution to the conflict in Syria.

France has delayed plans to pull troops out of its former colony Mali after a fresh bout of clashes in a key town.

France said earlier this month it was ending its "frontal war phase" in Mali after sending troops there in 2013 to free the country's vast desert north from Islamists and Tuareg rebels who seized control after a coup.

Fighting between government and militia forces erupted in a city in Sudan's Darfur on Tuesday, killing four and ending an uneasy calm after the region's worst unrest in a decade, sources said.

"They are fighting inside El Fasher town -- heavy fighting," one resident told Agence France Presse by telephone, adding he could not identify the combatants, although some were in uniform.

France's foreign minister offered China his country's help on Sunday in locating 10 workers feared kidnapped by Boko Haram militants, as African leaders joined forces to fight the terrorist group.

"We have already told our Chinese friends that we were at their disposal in helping them find their citizens," Laurent Fabius said on a visit to the Chinese capital, where he will meet Prime Minister Li Keqiang on Monday.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam stressed on Sunday that if the March 8 and 14 alliances exerted efforts to reach an agreement over a presidential candidate then the deadlock in the country will end, warning of any possible of vacuum at the country's top Christian post.

“We still have one week before the deadline ends,” Salam said in an interview with the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea stated on Saturday that his presidential program was based on the party's values without changing it to please anyone, announcing also that he is ready to “open all war files.”

"My nomination comes against the option of (presidential) vacuum which adopted by some factions,” Geagea said as he met with party officials in the French capital Paris.

Nigeria and its neighbors vowed Saturday to join forces against Boko Haram under an accord described as a declaration of war on the Islamic militants holding more than 200 schoolgirls.

Meeting in Paris, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and his counterparts from Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger approved an action plan to counter an organization that has been blamed for 2,000 deaths this year as well as last month's abduction of the schoolgirls from northeastern Nigeria.

Head of the Mustaqbal Movement MP Saad Hariri and Lebanese Forces leader and presidential candidate Samir Geagea held talks on Friday in the French capital Paris, reported the daily An Nahar on Saturday.

It said that Geagea is scheduled to also hold talks with various French officials on the latest Lebanese developments.

Presidents Barack Obama and Francois Hollande warned Russia on Friday of significant new sanctions if Moscow keeps up its "provocative and destabilizing" behavior in Ukraine.

During their telephone call, the U.S. and French leaders also discussed the hunt for more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls in Nigeria and a conference Hollande is hosting in Paris this weekend on combating the Islamic militant group Boko Haram that is holding them, the White House said in a statement.