Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn will face trial on pimping charges along with 12 others in connection with an alleged prostitution ring in the French city of Lille, prosecutors said Friday.

Strauss-Kahn was charged last year with "aggravated pimping as part of an organised gang", in one of a string of cases that came to light after he was forced to resign from his IMF job over an alleged sexual assault on a New York hotel maid.

Syrian opposition leaders on Thursday pressed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to arm rebel groups and said there could be no peace talks while government forces kill civilians.

Kerry held his first meeting with Syrian National Coalition president Ahmad Jarba at the U.S. mission to the United Nations in New York.

Eight western Balkan presidents held Thursday their first-ever summit, aimed at promoting cooperation and getting more countries into the European Union, two decades after the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia.

The informal gathering in Slovenia, attended also by French President Francois Hollande, brought together the Albanian president and seven counterparts from the former Yugoslavia -- including Serbia and Kosovo, whose ties remain frayed.

Bolivian President Evo Morales Wednesday accepted apologies from France, Spain, Italy and Portugal for blocking his jet from their airspace over suspicions U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden was on board.

"I want to say that, while we are not completely satisfied, we accept the apologies of the four countries as a first step, because we want to continue relations with the countries," Morales said in a statement.

A man suspected of wanting to fight alongside radical Islamist rebels in Syria was detained in France as part of an anti-terrorist operation, a source close to the case said Wednesday.

The unidentified 47-year-old was visiting his family near the eastern city of Belfort when he was taken in for questioning Tuesday by intelligence officers, the source told Agence France Presse.

Syria's opposition leader is scheduled to meet French President Francois Hollande Wednesday, a day after asking France for military aid to boost the forces fighting the regime of President Bashar Assad.

"This is one of the goals of our visit among other issues," new opposition chief Ahmad Jarba told reporters after meeting members of the French parliament's foreign affairs committee on Tuesday at the start of a two-day trip.

Syria's new opposition chief Ahmad Jarba arrived in Paris on Tuesday for a two-day visit aimed at convincing France to boost its support for rebels battling Bashar Assad.

Jarba, accompanied on the trip by Free Syrian Army (FSA) chief Selim Idriss and other opposition leaders, was to meet President Francois Hollande on Wednesday.

Weekend violence outside Paris triggered by France's controversial veil ban has highlighted how tensions with the Muslim community are adding to an already-volatile mix of poverty and alienation in the country's blighted suburbs.

The unrest in the Paris suburb of Trappes erupted after a man was arrested for allegedly attacking a police officer who stopped his wife over wearing a full-face veil in public.

The United Arab Emirates ordered two military surveillance satellites from France on Monday, in a deal worth more than 700 million euros ($913.2 million).

The Falcon Eye deal, signed in Abu Dhabi over competition from Lockheed Martin of the United States, includes the supply and launch of two high-resolution Helios surveillance satellites, a control station and training for 20 UAE engineers.

France's interior minister said Sunday security forces would remain in place "as long as necessary" after a second night of violence in the Paris suburbs sparked when police stopped a woman for wearing a veil.

Manuel Valls told French radio he would keep in place "a significant police presence until a lasting calm is restored" in and around the satellite town of Trappes, south-west of Paris.