Thousands of students rallied across France Thursday to protest against the anti-immigration National Front party, whose historic success in EU polls they said threatened democracy.

Waving banners that read "No to the National Front", and "Wake up, France," demonstrators rallied in Lyon, in the east of the country, as well as in Paris, Toulouse, Rouen, Amiens, Nantes, Marseille and Bordeaux.

Faced with a stalling China market, French winemakers are working to entice a growing middle class in Asia away from spirits and beer -- but face big obstacles in doing so.

Chinese wine shipments and consumption fell for the first time in a decade in 2013. The drop comes as Beijing reins in luxury spending and extravagant banquets, against the backdrop of a slower economy, and an anti-graft campaign backed by President Xi Jinping to root out official corruption.

Fresh from victory in European elections in France, far-right leader Marine Le Pen said Wednesday she was confident of creating a new euroskeptic group within weeks inside the European Parliament.

After driving her National Front (NF) to first place with 25 percent of the vote in France, Le Pen hopes to form and take command of a far-right grouping of parties in the Parliament, a move that would boost both her influence and financial clout.

Nicolas Sarkozy came under fresh pressure over an election funding scandal Wednesday as his ousted successor as leader of the opposition UMP party admitted that it had "paid some bills it shouldn't have."

In a letter to party activists, Jean-Francois Cope also acknowledged that there was strong evidence that the payments had "in reality served to meet the expenses of the (2012 Sarkozy) presidential campaign".

Russian President Vladimir Putin id due to meet his French counterpart Francois Hollande for Ukraine talks on the eve of events marking the D-Day anniversary, a Kremlin aide said Wednesday.

"The meeting will take place in the evening of June 5 in Paris at the Elysee Palace. The sides will discuss various multilateral international questions including the Ukraine crisis," presidential aide Yury Ushakov told journalists, the Interfax news agency reported.

Qatar could firm up its interest in buying French Rafale fighter planes when its new Emir, Sheikh Tamim Ben Hamad Al Thani visits Paris on June 23, the La Tribune financial website reported on Wednesday.

The contract is of vital importance to the Dassault Aviation group which builds the plane and to the French government.

French police on Wednesday expelled around 550 people from makeshift camps in the northern port of Calais after a scabies outbreak, drawing criticism from rights groups over the treatment of migrants hoping to reach Britain.

Local officials said some 200 policemen had been deployed to evict the occupants from the camps which were then bulldozed.

The leaders of France and Italy joined Belgium's Elio Di Rupo on Tuesday to pay homage to the victims of a fatal weekend attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.

President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, in Brussels to attend an informal EU summit, met Jewish leaders outside the museum and then bowed their heads in tribute to a rabbi's prayer.

Germany's finance minister on Tuesday described France's far-right National Front (FN), which came out on top in France's weekend vote for a new European Parliament, as a "fascist" party.

Wolfgang Schaeuble told a forum on Europe that the outcome in Europe's second biggest economy was a vote "not for a right-wing party but for a fascist party".

The leader of France's embattled main opposition UMP party quit Tuesday after shock claims that invoices for former president Nicolas Sarkozy's election campaign were billed as party expenses.

Several heavyweights of the center-right party, including Sarkozy's former prime minister Francois Fillon, demanded Cope's resignation following the latest twist in a corruption scandal engulfing him and a PR firm owned by his associates.