Top French and Saudi leaders will huddle Wednesday in Paris to discuss projects worth billions of euros, as France tightens relations with the conservative kingdom despite persistent criticism of its human rights record.

French President Francois Hollande will host Saudi Arabia's Defence Minister Prince Mohamed bin Salman after the inaugural meeting of a Franco-Saudi committee that is to discuss proposed projects in the aeronautics, nuclear power, health and investment sectors.

Iran's parliament approved a controversial bill Tuesday that it said would protect the country's nuclear program, but which could also hinder final negotiations on a deal with world powers.

The move re-exposed persistent tension between President Hassan Rouhani's government and lawmakers in Tehran, where hardliners routinely voice doubt about the merit of talking to the West.

French President Francois Hollande said his country was doing "everything" it can to save a Frenchman accused of drug offences in Indonesia from the firing squad after he lost an appeal against his death sentence Monday. 

Serge Atlaoui, 51, was due to be executed alongside eight other drug offenders two months ago but won a temporary reprieve after Paris stepped up pressure, with Indonesian authorities agreeing to let an outstanding appeal run its course.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian visited Mali on Monday to show his support for a landmark peace deal agreed in the former colony to end years of unrest and ethnic divisions.

Just two days after Mali's Tuareg-led rebel alliance added its signature to the Algiers Accord -- aimed at stabilizing Mali's restive northern desert -- Le Drian traveled to the northern African country to offer France's help in implementing the fragile agreement.

Britain and France insisted Monday that any deal on Iran's contested nuclear program must include a comprehensive verification regime to ensure Tehran sticks to its commitments, as the clock ticks down to an end-of-month deadline.

After years of tortuous negotiations, both sides are racing to agree a deal by June 30 that would see Iran open up its nuclear program to allay concerns it is seeking atomic weapons, in return for the West lifting punishing economic sanctions.

Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel lamented the "insufficient" progress in resolving the Ukraine crisis after a telephone conversation Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a source close to the French president.

"The chancellor and the president (Hollande) raised the need to put pressure on the various parties" given that progress is "insufficient," the source said, a day before foreign ministers from Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany hold talks in Paris on the crisis.

EU foreign ministers formally agreed Monday to prolong to January 2016 damaging economic sanctions against Russia to ensure it fully implements Ukraine peace accords, officials said.

"EU has extended economic sanctions against Russia until 31 January 2016, with a view to complete implementation of (the) Minsk agreement," an EU spokeswoman said in a tweeted message.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday told visiting French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius that any new Palestinian unity government should not include Hamas, France's top diplomat said.

The remarks came on the eve of a key meeting of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to discuss forming a new cabinet after the government collapsed this week amid a deepening rift with Hamas, the de facto rulers of the Gaza Strip.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Sunday any nuclear deal with Iran must be verifiable as he prepared to meet his Iranian counterpart with a deadline looming for an agreement.

"We think that we must be extremely firm and that, if an agreement is to be reached, that agreement must be robust," Fabius told journalists at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who strongly opposes the deal currently on the table.

Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and French President Francois Hollande played down tensions Sunday over a migrant crisis which has seen hundreds of asylum seekers blocked at the border between the two countries.

"I don't think there are tensions between us... sometimes ministers can let themselves go with statements, it's like engaged couples who have been together a long time," Prime Minister Renzi quipped during a joint press conference in Milan.