France is carrying out DNA tests to determine whether top Islamist militant leaders were among those killed in recent fighting in Mali, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Thursday.

"We know that there were a fair number of leaders among the several hundred terrorists killed" in recent days, Fabius said on RTL radio.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was in Mali on Thursday to meet French troops fighting Islamist rebels, the ministry said.

He was to visit several cities, including the capital Bamako, and was due in the northern city of Gao at mid-day.

France's finance minister says Europe must focus more on promoting growth and less on tightening budgets to revive the bloc's sluggish economy and avoid a deepening social crisis.

Pierre Moscovici warned Thursday in Brussels that continuing on a strict austerity course would only "nourish a social crisis that leads to populism."

Around 15 Islamic militants were killed overnight in heavy fighting with French and Chadian forces in northeastern Mali, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Tuesday.

The defense ministry has said dozens of Islamists have died in the area over the past few days. A third French soldier died in the conflict on Saturday.

A French reporter held for three weeks in Iraq for allegedly taking unauthorized photographs of security installations told AFP on Monday that he had returned to France.

Nadir Dendoune, who also holds Australian and Algerian passports, confirmed his return but declined to make any further comment.

The families of four hostages being held by al-Qaida's north African branch on Monday urged the French government to seek negotiations with the militant group in the hope of securing their relatives' release.

The call was issued against a background of fears for the lives of the hostages following the reported killing of two al-Qaida-linked leaders by French-backed Chadian troops in Mali over the weekend.

An al-Qaida source on Monday confirmed the death of one of the leaders of the organization’s north African wing, in the most significant success yet for the French-led operation against Islamist fighters in Mali.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) chief Abdelhamid Abou Zeid was killed as a result of a French bombing raid in the Ifoghas mountains, an AQIM militant told the private Mauritanian news agency Sahara Medias.

Supporters of former militant Georges Abdallah staged a demonstration on Sunday in protest against the decision to postpone a decision on his release.

The protesters staged the demonstration in front of the French Embassy in Beirut.

France said Sunday that one of its soldiers had been killed in fighting in northern Mali, in the third death of a French serviceman since the launch of its military intervention in mid-January.

The presidency said in a statement that the soldier, from the First Parachute Chasseur Regiment, was killed in combat on Saturday evening.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot voiced his country's support for the Lebanese government's policy of disassociation from regional developments, reported the daily An Nahar Sunday.

He told the daily that all Lebanese powers must respect the Baabda Declaration that was sponsored by President Michel Suleiman and which calls for sides to adhere to the disassociation policy.