A suicide bomber staged a botched attack on foreign forces in northern Mali overnight Saturday, killing himself but causing no other casualties, Malian and French military officials said.

A senior Malian official described the bomber's target as a "French army position," but a French army spokesman said the attack was against a battalion of the U.N'.s peacekeeping mission for Mali, MINUSMA, and that only 24 French troops were present.

Paris will host on December 7 a mini-summit on the crisis in strife-torn Central African Republic, with leaders from neighboring African countries and U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon due to attend, the French presidency said Saturday.

The gathering of leaders, including CAR Prime Minister Nicolas Tiangaye, will take place after the U.N. Security Council votes on France's plan to deploy about 1,000 soldiers to take on an active fighting role alongside a flagging African-led "stabilization mission".

France said Friday it had replaced its ambassador in the Central African Republic, as it prepares to send more troops to help restore order in the strife-torn country.

"We have proposed the naming of a new ambassador to the Central African authorities," foreign ministry spokesman Romain Nadal told journalists.

France's Interior Minister Manuel Valls appeared to backtrack Thursday on controversial remarks that Roma did not want to integrate, saying some could fit into French society.

The comments from the tough-talking Valls, whose earlier remarks about Roma sparked condemnation at home and abroad, came a day after one of the largest Roma camps in France was dismantled by police in a northern Paris suburb.

French troops have begun to deploy to the strife-torn Central African Republic, airlifting men and equipment to Bangui in preparation for an intervention to restore order, an airport source said.

"French military aircraft have made several round trips in the past few hours coming mainly from Gabon, to bring in supplies," the source told Agence France Presse, asking not to be named.

French authorities on Wednesday cleared one of the country's largest Roma camps, evicting some 800 migrants from a shantytown north of Paris.

France has in recent years pursued a controversial policy of evicting Roma migrants from camps outside major cities, often paying them to return to their countries of origin, mainly Romania and Bulgaria.

French President Francois Hollande visits Spain on Wednesday for a bilateral summit seeking a common stance on banking supervision to avoid a repeat of the eurozone debt crisis.

Hollande is pushing for European authorities to adopt common measures to prevent costly bank failures and to directly recapitalize lenders in difficulty.

Long-delayed Syria peace talks due in January will take place without the presence of President Bashar Assad or radical opposition groups, France's foreign minister said on Tuesday.

"The purpose of Geneva II is not to have an armchair discussion about Syria, it's to have mutual agreement between regime representatives -- without Assad -- and the moderate opposition in order to form a transitional government," Laurent Fabius told French radio.

France's defense minister said Tuesday that Paris would deploy about 1,000 soldiers to Central African Republic for six months to support an African peacekeeping force.

"France will support this African mission with about 1,000 soldiers," Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Europe 1 radio.

France is ready to send 800 extra troops to reinforce its presence in Central African Republic, the leader of the strife-torn nation said Monday after talks in Paris with France's foreign minister.

Nicolas Tiangaye told Agence France Presse that Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius "had spoken of sending 800 men" in addition to the 410 already in the country.