French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrived Thursday in the Malian capital Bamako on the first leg of a tour of several countries to prepare for a post-war Mali, according to an Agence France Presse journalist.

Le Drian, who was greeted by his Malian counterpart Yamoussa Camara, made no comment but his ministry released a statement from Paris saying the trip was preparation for the period after the French withdrawal.

Spain's unemployment rate surged past 27 percent to a new record in the first quarter of 2013, official data showed Thursday as a deep recession ravaged the eurozone's fourth-largest economy.

A record unemployment number was also expected to emerge later Thursday in France, the eurozone's second-biggest economy.

China agreed to buy 60 Airbus planes in a memorandum of understanding signed Thursday by French President Francois Hollande and Chinese President Xi Jinping in front of reporters.

A significant portion of the planes would be manufactured in China at an Airbus factory in Tianjin, 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the capital, an industry source told Agence France Presse on condition on anonymity.

French President Francois Hollande arrived in Beijing on Thursday on a trip aimed at boosting exports to China, with hopes that deals can be reached over the sale of aircraft and nuclear power.

Hollande, who will be the first Western leader to be received in the Chinese capital by new President Xi Jinping, is accompanied by a planeload of businessmen hoping to increase their share of the fruits of China's economic growth.

Thousands flocked on Wednesday to a hilltop memorial above Yerevan to mark the 98th anniversary of the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I which Armenia wants recognized internationally as a genocide.

In the annual ceremony broadcast by all national television channels, huge crowds headed to the memorial that commemorates the massacres to lay flowers at the eternal flame.

A consortium of Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and France's Areva are on track to win a deal to build a $20 billion nuclear power station in Turkey, a report said on Wednesday.

The top-selling Yomiuri Shimbun said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo would likely sign the deal with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a visit to Turkey next week as part of a four-nation trip that ends on May 4.

The French army handed over its security operation in the Malian desert city of Timbuktu to Burkina Faso troops on Tuesday, as part of a phased withdrawal from its troubled former colony.

Al-Qaida-linked Islamic militants controlled Timbuktu along with other key northern Mali cities for nearly 10 months until being driven out by the French-led Operation Serval in January.

A rabbi and his son were wounded Tuesday in a knife attack in Paris carried out by man who had escaped from a psychiatric institution, police said.

The rabbi, in his 50s, and his 18-year-old son were attacked on their way to synagogue. The father suffered a wound to the neck and the son to the back of the neck, but police said neither of their lives were in danger.

France's parliament on Tuesday defied months of protests by approving a bill that would make France the 14th country legalizing same-sex marriages.

Opponents to the law, though, vowed to fight on.

A car bomb hit France's embassy in Libya on Tuesday, wounding two French guards and causing extensive damage in the first attack on a foreign mission since militants stormed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in September.

Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel Aziz branded the bombing a "terrorist act", and French President Francois Hollande said Tripoli must act quickly to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.