Egypt's Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi must "hear" popular demands, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Tuesday, after the defiant president snubbed an ultimatum to step down.

"When there is such a mass of problems and a such a mass of people expressing what is not than just unease but censure and distress, the Egyptian government must listen to the people... President Morsi must hear what is taking place," he said on the i-Tele network.

French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday called for the European Union to take a common stand over allegations of Washington spying on its allies.

"Europe must have a coordinated, common position on the requirements we need to come up with and the explanations we must ask for," Hollande said as he met his Lithuanian counterpart Dalia Grybauskaite, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, in Paris.

U.S. leaker Edward Snowden has applied for asylum in Russia and President Vladimir Putin said on Monday he was welcome to stay as long as he stopped leaking U.S. intelligence reports.

On Sunday night, Snowden applied for political asylum at the consulate office of the Sheremetyevo airport, where he had been staying for more than a week in legal limbo, a foreign ministry official told Agence France Presse.

Robbers posing as policemen made off with 200,000 euros ($261,000) belonging to a senior official from the Saudi Youth and Sports Ministry just after he landed in Paris, police said Monday.

The audacious robbery was staged on the busy A1 highway near Le Bourget airport. The robbers were armed and used two cars equipped with flashing lights and the word "Police" on them.

Three European women with feminist protest group Femen arrived in Paris on Thursday after they were freed from a Tunisian jail where they were held for baring their breasts in public.

The three, two Frenchwomen and a German, were released from a prison in northeastern Tunisia on Wednesday after an appeals court suspended their sentences when they apologized for their protest.

A French court has upheld a life sentence handed to Carlos the Jackal, once one of the world's most-wanted militants, who had appealed against his conviction for a series of deadly bombings in France 30 years ago.

The eccentric 63-year-old Venezuelan, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, addressed the court for four hours at the end of the six-week trial Wednesday, before a panel of judges went into chambers for deliberations.

A French court was to rule Wednesday on the appeal of Carlos the Jackal, once one of the world's most-wanted militants, against his conviction for a series of deadly bombings in France 30 years ago.

The eccentric 63-year-old Venezuelan, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, addressed the court for four hours at the end of the six-week trial Wednesday, before a panel of judges went into chambers for deliberations.

Six people were arrested in the Paris region on Monday in coordinated raids on members of a suspected radical Islamist cell allegedly planning "terrorist acts" on French soil, a source close to the investigation told Agence France Presse.

The suspects, aged between 22 and 38, were "all known to police for serious delinquency" and are being detained by the police anti-terrorist unit in the Paris suburb of Levallois.

France on Monday expressed “great concern” over the violence in the southern city of Sidon, condemning attacks against the military institution.

“France strongly condemns the attacks targeting the army that have resulted in the death or injury of several troops,” foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said.

French President Francois Hollande warned on Sunday that Hizbullah's intervention in Syria will “definitely have repercussions on the fragile balance in Lebanon.”

“The party’s activities in the Syrian war will definitely have repercussions on Lebanon’s fragile balance,” Hollande told reporters during an official trip to Qatar.