Two French soldiers died and 17 "terrorists" were killed in a failed bid to free a French hostage in southern Somalia from Islamists holding him since 2009, the French defense minister said Saturday.

The overnight operation was launched by France's elite DGSE secret service, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a statement, adding that the raid was sparked by the "intransigence of the terrorists who have refused to negotiate for three and a half years and were holding Denis Allex in inhuman conditions."

Thousands of Kurds from all over Europe are expected in Paris Saturday for what is expected to be an angry protest over the killing of three female activists shot dead in the French capital.

Police have been placed on high alert and security at the Turkish embassy has been tightened ahead of the demonstration.

Backed by French airpower, Mali on Friday unleashed an offensive against Islamist rebels who have seized control of the north of the country and were threatening to push south.

President Francois Hollande confirmed in Paris that French forces were supporting an attack aimed at repelling al-Qaida-linked radicals who have triggered international alarm this week with moves towards the capital Bamako.

France insisted Friday on restricting the prescription of newer-generation birth control pills even as Europe's medicines watchdog declared there was no evidence to merit a health warning.

Citing concerns over risks of blood clots from the so-called 3rd- and 4th-generation pills, France said it would limit prescriptions of these contraceptives and urged the European Union (EU) to follow suit.

The Libyan ambassador to France was attacked in his office Thursday, police said, adding they had made three arrests.

Ambassador Mansour Sayf al-Nasr was "slightly injured in the forehead," a diplomatic source said.

Sakine Cansiz, one of the three Kurdish women found slain in Paris on Thursday, was a co-founder of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and a former guerrilla for the organization that has waged an armed struggle against Turkey for nearly three decades.

A survivor of 12 years in a Turkish jail, she was one of a handful of prominent women in a movement regarded as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.

A French court on Thursday ruled that imprisoned pro-Palestinian militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah can be released on condition he is expelled from French territory.

The 61-year-old Lebanese national who has spent 28 years in jail and is a former guerrilla in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was granted parole in November on condition of his expulsion but was not released pending a decision on an appeal by prosecutors.

A co-founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and two other activists were found shot dead Thursday in Paris, a day after it emerged that Turkey and the jailed leader of the banned group were holding peace talks.

The women were found in the early hours with gunshot wounds to the head and neck inside a Kurdish information center in the 10th district of the French capital, police and the center’s director said.

France on Wednesday pledged to give one million euros ($1.3 million) to help the poorest of the hundreds of thousands of people in southern Somalia forced from their homes by war and famine.

The aid will enable the International Organization for Migration to put in place a year-long support program for the displaced and those sheltering them, the IOM said in a statement.

French President Francois Hollande will head to the United Arab Emirates next week where he will push the Gulf state to buy Rafale fighter jets, a French diplomatic source said Wednesday.

France is keen to make its first foreign sale of the Rafale, which has struggled to find buyers to support a project that has cost tens of billions of euros.