France will not tolerate any hate speech or acts against Jews, Muslims or Christians, President Francois Hollande said Tuesday, just days after a comic whose sketches were viewed as anti-Semitic was banned from performing.

Hollande hailed as a "victory" a ban on Dieudonne's sketches initiated by Interior Minister Manuel Valls. The controversial comic has since been forced to cancel a nationwide tour after his attempts to challenge the ban in court failed.

President Francois Hollande voiced confidence on Tuesday that Europe would back French efforts to end the unprecedented sectarian violence in the Central African Republic.

France sent in troops more than a month ago to its mineral-rich but impoverished former colony after a coup fueled more instability in the notoriously volatile nation and led to violence pitting Christians against Muslims.

French President Francois Hollande Tuesday said he wanted a closer partnership with Germany to work on defense issues and ensure peace and security in the world.

Hollande, speaking at a high-profile press conference, said he wanted the top two EU economies to jointly react to these challenges.

French President Francois Hollande admitted Tuesday he was going through a painful time in his private life but refused to say whether his relationship with his long-term girlfriend Valerie Trierweiler is over after the revelation of an affair.

Trierweiler, France's de facto First Lady, has been in hospital since Friday with stress linked to last week's revelation that he has been having a liaison with Julie Gayet, a blonde actress 18 years his junior.

France's first ladies have always had a murky official existence, bound by no legal status but still given taxpayer-funded staff and an office.

As Valerie Trierweiler reels from revelations that her long-term partner, President Francois Hollande, has been having an affair with an actress, the issue of the first lady's legal status has once again come to the fore -- all the more so as the two are not married.

EU internal market commissioner Michel Barnier is set to run for the presidency of the European Commission, he revealed in an interview published Tuesday.

Current president Jose Manuel Barroso steps down on October 31, and parliamentary parties are already lining up their candidates to pre-empt any deal cobbled together by member states.

France forcibly evicted a record 19,380 Roma migrants in 2013, more than double the figure the previous year, two rights groups said in a joint report on Tuesday.

"In comparison 9,404 Roma were forcibly evicted by authorities in 2012 and 8,455 in 2011," the Human Rights League (LDH) and the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban meets Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday for talks touching on a potentially huge contract for Russia to boost the EU nation's only nuclear power plant.

The Kremlin said in a statement that the two close trade and energy partners were holding "substantive discussions" on building up the capacity of Hungary's Paks facility.

Valerie Trierweiler, the long-term girlfriend of French President Francois Hollande, was to remain in hospital on Monday where she was admitted after reports emerged her partner was having an affair with an actress.

Trierweiler, 48, was taken to hospital suffering from stress on Friday, and was initially expected to check out on Monday.

So does France's unmarried president now have both a First Lady and a First Mistress?

Francois Hollande came under mounting pressure on Monday to clear up the confusion created by the latest developments in his complicated love life.