A French jihadist arrested earlier this month in Mali returned to France on Tuesday and was immediately detained, judicial and informed sources said Tuesday.

The 37-year-old is among six men captured at the start of this month during fighting between French-led troops and Islamist rebels in the Ifoghas mountains in northern Mali.

The OECD trimmed its growth forecast for France on Tuesday but recommended the government avoid more spending cuts to meet it EU deficit reduction pledges.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said it now expects the French economy to grow by 0.1 percent this year, instead of the 0.3 percent it forecast earlier.

Israel must immediately begin withdrawing its settlers from the Palestinian territories, a U.N. expert told diplomats Monday, even as the new Israeli government appeared set to strengthen the hand of the Jewish settler lobby.

Israel must "immediately and without preconditions cease the settlement activity and to initiate a process of withdrawal from the settlements," Christine Chanet told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, lamenting a "rampant annexation" of Palestinian territories.

A French corporal was killed during fighting in northern Mali, bringing to five the number of French deaths since the January 11 intervention to oust armed Islamist groups, President Francois Hollande's office said Sunday.

The statement did not elaborate on the circumstances of the soldier's death and paid tribute to the French forces involved in "the final and most difficult phase of their mission" in Mali.

Calling France a "sad" place led by an uninspired government where people are "fed up", actor Gerard Depardieu dealt his former country a healthy dose of criticism Saturday, but denied he left for tax reasons.

In an interview with local Belgian television channel Notele filmed on Saturday and to be uploaded onto the site www.notele.be, the 63-year-old star of "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "Green Card" observed that the problem with France is "especially the lack of energy".

Tripoli's embassy in Cairo said Saturday it was suspending work indefinitely, five days after demonstrators attacked the mission and burned the Libyan flag to protest the death of an Egyptian Copt in Libya.

A statement by the embassy said consular activity would be suspended but gave no reason for the decision which will affect Egyptians seeking to travel to neighboring Libya for work.

Carla Bruni has reportedly taken a swipe at French President Francois Hollande, depicting him as a bumbling buffoon with no manners in a song that features on the former first lady's new album.

The lyrics of "The Penguin" were released Friday and immediately interpreted as an attack on the man who succeeded her husband, Nicolas Sarkozy, as France's leader.

A small French study of 14 HIV patients who have remained healthy for years after stopping drug treatment offers fresh evidence that early medical intervention may lead to a "functional cure" for AIDS, researchers said Thursday.

The research, published in the U.S. journal PLoS Pathogens, comes on the heels of a report last week that a baby in Mississippi appeared to be cured of HIV after aggressive antiretroviral drug treatment delivered within 30 hours of birth.

U.S. President Barack Obama offered "warm wishes" on behalf of the American people to newly elected Pope Francis I on Wednesday, hailing the Argentine as "the first pope from the Americas."

"As a champion of the poor and the most vulnerable among us, he carries forth the message of love and compassion that has inspired the world for more than two thousand years, that in each other we see the face of God," he said.

A Frenchman who ripped a Muslim woman's veil off her face as she strolled in a fairground was Wednesday given a five-month suspended prison sentence and ordered to compensate his victim.

The 30-year-old man, who admitted charges of aggravated assault, had justified the September 2012 attack at the time as an attempt to uphold a controversial law banning women from wearing niqabs, face-covering veils, in public.