Turkey is still negotiating with Japanese and Chinese firms for a $22 billion tender to build a nuclear power plant and the process is not yet concluded, the country's energy minister said on Thursday.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi is expected to head to Paris on Monday on a four-day official visit to meet with senior French officials.

An Nahar newspaper reported on Thursday that al-Rahi will hold talks with French President Francois Hollande on the second day of his visit.

Four little black sheep on Wednesday left the countryside and began their new careers in the city: working as eco-friendly lawn movers in a largely working-class district in northeastern Paris.

Between April and October, the new "park workers" will graze grounds the size of eight tennis-courts in three two-week-long sweeps in a move to promote biodiversity and make the grooming of the capital's green areas more sustainable -- replacing both chemicals and lawn mowers.

French President Francois Hollande vowed Wednesday that a new law on the "publication and control" of ministers' wealth would be presented within weeks, after his ex-budget minister was charged in a tax evasion probe.

Hollande said the former minister, Jerome Cahuzac, "did not benefit from any protection" from top officials and that his actions were an "insult to the Republic".

France has not decided whether to support the lifting of an EU arms embargo on Syria, its foreign minister said Wednesday, in a u-turn from its previous stance favoring the supply of weapons to the war-torn country's rebels.

"We have to give a response end of May. Until then, I can't tell you yes or no," Laurent Fabius said on BFM-TV, after being asked what position Paris would take over the renewal of the near two-year-old embargo.

Three thousand miles from his native Lyon, Frenchman Claude Abry is living his dream in the Middle East, where he once cooked for royalty and has now traded his chef's toque for helmets and Harley-Davidsons.

"After my family, I have two loves in life: cooking and riding motorcycles," Abry, 43, told Agence France Presse at his Harley dealership outside the Jordanian capital, Amman -- a challenging project in a country where bikes were banned for more than two decades for reasons of "public safety".

French President Francois Hollande expressed hope on Monday that Lebanon's sovereignty and stability remain, calling on politicians to abide by the Baabda declaration.

According to Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3), Hollande contacted his Lebanese counterpart Michel Suleiman to congratulate him on Easter Day, stressing the importance of implementing the dissociation policy.

Malian troops swept Timbuktu for remaining Islamist fighters after a weekend battle that left seven dead and forced France to dispatch reinforcements and fighter jets to help Mali's army.

By late Sunday relative calm had been restored, after Islamist militants used the chaos created by a suicide bombing Saturday night to infiltrate the city and engage French and Malian troops in a day-long battle that left four more rebels, a soldier and a civilian dead.

Two separate fires in a house in northern France and a building outside Paris killed eight people overnight, including five children between the ages of two and 10, officials said Sunday.

In Saint-Quentin, a town which lies 130 kilometers (80 miles) northeast of Paris, a divorced father who was hosting his children for the weekend jumped out of a first-floor window when flames engulfed his house.

A French lottery player late Friday hit a whopping jackpot of 132,486,744 euros in the nine-nation Euro Millions, the fifth-biggest jackpot ever.

The winner, who has 60 days to make himself known to organizers Francaise des Jeux, beat odds of 116,531,000 to one.