France's Francois Hollande was left red-faced in Tokyo on Friday after a slip of the tongue that saw him confuse his Japanese hosts with the Chinese.

During a press conference Hollande, speaking in French, referred to the Algerian hostage crisis in January in which 10 Japanese nationals died, saying he had "expressed the condolences of the French people to the Chinese people."

France has sent the United States "all the information it has" on what it has billed as proof that chemical weapons have been used in Syria, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday.

The move follows a request on Wednesday from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry amid mounting pressure for the United States administration to act in response to the evidence of chemical weapons use.

Francois Hollande arrived in Japan Thursday for three days of talks, hoping to seal deals on nuclear co-operation and in the aviation sector, on the first state visit by a French president in 17 years.

Hollande, along with key ministers and a large business delegation, arrives keen to learn more about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's bid to inflate Japan's flaccid economy.

France's rising unemployment reached 10.8 percent in the first quarter of 2013, the highest it has been since 1998, according to data released Thursday from the national statistics institute Insee.

The jobless rate in the eurozone's second-largest economy rose by 0.3 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2012, it said.

France and Britain have both confirmed for the first time that chemical arms were used in Syria and Paris says a line has been crossed. So what next in a conflict that has cost over 94,000 lives?

Not much, experts predict, amid resistance from Syria allies Russia and China and ahead of a proposed peace conference, coupled with painful memories of the Iraq war, which was justified by supposed evidence of weapons of mass destruction that never materialized.

French President Francois Hollande said Wednesday that the world was obligated to act in response to concrete evidence of the deadly nerve agent sarin being used in Syria.

"We have provided the elements of proof that now obligate the international community to act," Hollande told reporters in Paris a day after France revealed that it had firm evidence sarin had been used by the Syrian regime in at least one case.

France will not intervene unilaterally in Syria, the government said Wednesday after Paris stated there was "no doubt" that the regime in the war-torn country had used deadly sarin gas.

"France will take no unilateral and isolated decision... It is now up to the international community," government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem told reporters in response to a question on a possible military intervention in Syria.

Syria must grant unrestricted access to a U.N. investigation team following France's announcement that it has proof that President Bashar Assad's regime is using sarin gas in the country's civil war, Britain insisted Tuesday.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said France's revelation that the regime was using the deadly nerve agent showed "the scale of the atrocities...is becoming ever clearer".

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Tuesday that Paris had solid proof that President Bashar Assad's regime was using sarin gas in the Syrian conflict, adding "all options" are on the table.

"We have no doubt that the gas is being used..the laboratory tests are clear," he said on television after French laboratory tests on blood and hair samples from Syria pointed to the use of sarin gas.

Survivors of an inferno at a Chinese poultry processing plant told of their desperate attempts to save others, as relatives of the 119 people killed demanded answers from authorities, media reported Tuesday.

"It was complete disorder, everyone was running," said Chen Hengwu, a worker who escaped unhurt at the Baoyuanfeng plant after it went up in flames in China's deadliest fire for 12 years.