Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will visit France next week to deliver a speech at UNESCO, ahead of nuclear talks in Geneva with world powers, media reported Wednesday.

Zarif, the first Iranian foreign minister to visit France in years, will also hold talks with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Paris, the official IRNA news agency said.

Electronic spying on French and Spanish phone records was carried out by those countries' intelligence services and not by the National Security Agency, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the Journal's report contradicted earlier accounts from French and Spanish media that alleged the NSA was scooping up millions of phone records of citizens in those countries.

A French association that fights for the rights of curvy women has made an official complaint against designer Karl Lagerfeld over his comments that no one wants to see plump models on catwalks.

The association -- called "Pretty, curvy, sexy and fine with it" -- filed the complaint at the prosecutor's office in the western city of Saintes, accusing the haute couture star of "defamatory and discriminatory comments", its president Betty Aubriere said.

The parents of a Roma schoolgirl whose deportation from France sparked a furor and rocked the government have again applied for French residency, their lawyer said.

Leonarda Dibrani, 15, was deported to Kosovo earlier this month along with her parents and siblings. Her case triggered outrage as she was taken by the authorities while she was on a school trip.

Countries in northern Europe lashed by a storm that killed 16 people were on Tuesday still struggling with power outages and travel disruptions a day after the tempest.

After gusting winds and heavy rain, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and northern Germany began weighing up the damage left in the storm's wake.

At a tiny bar in Paris's Montmartre district, chef Elie Daviron is happy to admit his new menu has disgusted some clients while others need two or three drinks before they can face it.

Amid the guacamole, chicken tikka and chili hotdogs, the young chef is conducting a "gastronomical experiment" with what he calls a selection of "insect tapas".

U.S. intelligence is better than in Europe, and snooping at the heart of a widening scandal helps keeps the world safe, a top U.S. lawmaker declared Sunday amid a widening spying row.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers also suggested there was nothing surprising in revelations that the United States was monitoring communications of several dozen world leaders and ordinary citizens, and blamed the news media for getting the story wrong.

An advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama sought Thursday to assure the American people that the country's surveillance program is legitimate, but acknowledged it created "significant" challenges with allies.

"Though we collect the same sort of intelligence as all nations, our intelligence community has more restrictions and oversight than in any other country in history," Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president on homeland security and counterterrorism, wrote in an op-ed piece in the American daily USA Today.

France's market regulator slapped a record 14 million euro ($19 million) fine on a Lebanese trader Thursday for insider trading surrounding the 2008 buyout of logistics company Geodis by France's national rail firm, SNCF.

The previous record of eight million euros was imposed on luxury group LVMH earlier this year for activity related to its investment in rival Hermes.

France and Germany pushed Friday for Washington to agree rules for the spy game after damaging revelations the United States tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone, the European Union said.

Leaders "took note of the intention of France and Germany to seek bilateral talks with the U.S.,” EU President Herman Van Rompuy told a press conference after a first day of summit talks wrapped up.