Mass muggings and attacks on Chinese tourists in Paris have spawned alarm and warnings of a decline in the number of free-spending visitors from the Asian giant who swarm to France.

More than one million Chinese visitors come every year to France, a country which for them epitomises luxury, romance and quality products.

French President Francois Hollande has backed off a push to arm Syrian rebels amid turmoil within Syria's opposition and concerns the weapons could fall into extremist hands.

France has been pressuring European Union partners to lift an arms embargo against Syria to be able to provide the rebels with firepower against President Bashar Assad's military.

France's two key economic indicators for 2012 overshot government targets, with public deficit standing at 4.8 percent of gross domestic product while public debt reached a new record of 90.2 percent of output, data showed on Friday.

The government had forecast a deficit of 4.5 percent of GDP for the year and for public debt to reach 89.9 percent.

The 4,000 French soldiers deployed in Mali to fight Islamist rebels will be reduced to 1,000 by the end of the year, French President Francois Hollande said Thursday.

"We will start withdrawing at the end of April," he said in an interview with France 2 television. "In July, there will be no more than 2,000 soldiers in Mali. At the end of the year, there will only be 1,000 troops."

EU military instructors will start training their first battalion of Malian soldiers next week, in a bid to get the army ready to defend the crisis-torn country once French troops withdraw, the head of the mission said Wednesday.

The European Union Training Mission (EUTM) for Mali is tasked with helping the ill-trained army, just as French-led forces work to secure the north of the country from al-Qaida-linked rebels.

Up to 11,200 troops could be needed for a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali but a "parallel" military force will have to battle radical Islamists, U.N. leader Ban Ki-Moon said Tuesday.

The 11,200 troops could only cover main towns "assessed to be at highest risk," Ban said in a grim report on conditions in Mali that the U.N. Security Council will discuss Wednesday.

The U.N. Security Council on Monday condemned the killing of South African troops in the rebel takeover in Central African Republic and said it was ready to take "further measures."

The 15-nation council joined calls by U.N. leader Ban Ki-Moon for action to be taken against groups responsible for killings and human rights abuses in the huge African nation whose president fled on Sunday.

The United States on Monday said France had dealt a significant blow to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb after French troops killed one of the group's key leaders in northern Mali.

French President Francois Hollande on Saturday confirmed that Abdelhamid Abou Zeid had been killed in fighting led by the French army in the Ifoghas mountains in northern Mali in late February.

Syria's fractious opposition, further weakened by the shock weekend resignation of its leader, must reunite to prevent extremists from taking over, the French foreign minister said Monday.

Laurent Fabius also told Europe 1 radio that he was aware of a rumor that President Bashar Assad had been assassinated by an Iranian bodyguard but said that the information published on a website "has not been confirmed."

French President Francois Hollande has called on all parties in the Central African Republic "to remain calm and hold talks on a national unity government", after rebels seized control of the capital Bangui, his office said on Sunday.

Hollande noted the departure of President Francois Bozize, called on all parties to form a government in accordance with a peace deal reached in January, and asked "the armed groups to respect the population".