Police on Thursday detained a Franco-Lebanese businessman who is being probed in a high-profile political financing scandal over suspicions he was trying to flee France, a source close to the case said.

Ziad Takieddine, who is banned from leaving France as investigations into the so-called Karachi affair go on, allegedly paid 200,000 euros ($260,000) for a diplomatic passport from the Dominican Republic, the source said.

Vincent Autin and Bruno Boileau said "I do" on Wednesday at an emotional ceremony celebrating France's first official gay marriage after months of sometimes violent protests.

"It is a great honor to tell you that you are united in marriage by law," Helene Mandroux, the visibly moved mayor of the southern city of Montpellier, told the couple as Frank Sinatra's song "Love and Marriage" filled the room.

France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Wednesday some 3,000 to 4,000 fighters from Hizbullah were currently battling alongside regime troops in Syria.

"Regarding the Hizbullah militants present in the conflict, numbers vary between 3,000 and 10,000. Our estimate is around 3 to 4,000," the minister told the foreign affairs committee at France's lower house National Assembly.

French police on Wednesday arrested a 22-year-old man in connection with the weekend stabbing of a French soldier in Paris, with sources describing the suspect as a supporter of "radical Islam".

Interior Minister Manuel Valls said in a statement that the suspect was arrested Wednesday morning in the Yvelines region just west of Paris, following the attack on Saturday that saw soldier Cedric Cordiez stabbed in the neck.

France insisted Tuesday that the European Union's decision to lift its arms embargo on Syria's rebels was not meant as an aggressive move, after Russia said it would harm peace efforts.

"The decision to lift the embargo was not a belligerent decision, it is in support of a political solution," French foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said.

A senior French diplomat paid a brief visit to Tehran to discuss "solutions" to end the bloody crisis in Syria, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi said.

The director of the North Africa and Middle East section of the French foreign ministry, Jean-Francois Girault, met on Monday with Iranian deputy foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, Araqchi said.

France's first victim of a SARS-like virus which the 65-year-old man is thought to have contracted in Dubai, has died, health officials said Tuesday.

"The first patient is dead," a spokesman with the Directorate General for Health said, referring to the man who was hospitalized on April 23.

South Sudan said Tuesday it is committed to peace deals signed with its former foe Sudan, a day after Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir threatened to cut oil pipelines after accusing Juba of backing rebels.

Juba denies that it supports the rebels but Khartoum's renewed accusations threaten to derail a series of key deals to normalize relations between the former civil war foes.

French consumers are deeply pessimistic, being as gloomy as they have ever been since 1987, official data showed on Tuesday.

They are increasingly worried about the outlook for their living standards, a monthly index compiled by the national statistics institute INSEE showed.

An Algiers criminal court has sentenced to 12 years in jail a doctor accused of kidnapping Algerian children born to single mothers and selling them for adoption in France.

Khelifa Hanouti, accused of illegally shipping the children abroad with the help of a notary, must also pay a fine of a million dinars (10,000 euros), the court ruled late on Monday.