The leaders of France and Germany Saturday voiced "extreme concern" over the ongoing violence in Ukraine and called for a ceasefire after 49 died when pro-Russian separatists shot down an army plane.

During a telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel "stressed the importance of rapidly reaching a ceasefire in Ukraine," according to a statement issued by Hollande's office.

France announced Saturday that it has deported a Tunisian who was accused of recruiting young jihadists to fight in Syria, deeming him a threat to national security.

The interior ministry said the 28-year-old was expelled to Tunisia on Thursday "as a matter of absolute urgency in view of the threat that his presence posed for public safety and state security."

The trial of a doctor accused of having poisoned seven terminally-ill patients opened in France Wednesday, reviving the debate on euthanasia in a country where the practice is illegal.

Nicolas Bonnemaison faces life in prison if found guilty of "poisoning particularly vulnerable people" -- five women and two men who died between March 2010 and July 2011 soon after being admitted to a hospital in the southwestern city of Bayonne where he worked.

The French foreign ministry has denied that Paris had proposed the establishment of a so-called power triangle in Lebanon to replace the Taef Accord.

“France is committed to Lebanese consensus which the international community backs,” the ministry's spokesman, Romain Nadal, said during a briefing on Tuesday.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius nodded off during a business meeting in Algiers, with his drooping head caught on camera and going viral on social media.

The scene, broadcast by Algeria's pro-regime television channel En-Nahar and lasting 75 sleepy seconds, shows France's top diplomat dozing off, re-awakening, smiling and then falling back to sleep several times.

A French Mirage 2000D fighter jet used to patrol the skies over Mali crashed in neighboring Niger due to a technical glitch, the army said Tuesday.

The two crew members ejected and survived uninjured.

German officials will visit Tehran on Sunday for talks on Iran's nuclear drive, top Iranian negotiator and deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said on Tuesday.

The meeting will follow similar discussions with American, Russian and French negotiators this week ahead of the resumption of political talks between Iran and the main P5+1 group of world powers on Monday in Vienna.

Direct talks between France and Iran on the Islamic republic's controversial nuclear drive will be held this week, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Monday.

"Bilateral discussions between France and Iran will take place on Wednesday," Fabius said at a news conference in Algiers after Iranian and U.S. delegations began two days of direct negotiations in Geneva.

The unity of France's far-right National Front has cracked as founder Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter and party leader Marine engaged in an unprecedented public war of words, just as she is struggling to create a new EU euroskeptic group.

The crisis kicked off last week when a video was posted on the National Front (FN) website in which Le Pen made an apparent anti-Semitic pun -- the latest in a series of controversial statements by the 85-year-old who has had multiple convictions for inciting racial hatred and denying crimes against humanity.

The Kataeb Party criticized on Monday France's alleged proposal of a “power triangle” between Sunnis, Shiite, and Christians in Lebanon, which was mentioned during Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's latest speech.

It said in a statement after its weekly politburo meeting: “Lebanon has the exclusive right to tackle its national and political affairs.”