Experts in France began examining a washed-up plane part Wednesday which likely belonged to the MH370 plane that vanished mysteriously last year, hoping to find clues to one of aviation's greatest enigmas.

The Malaysia Airlines jet disappeared on March 8 last year, inexplicably veering off course en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, sparking a colossal but ultimately fruitless multinational hunt for the aircraft.

Investigators are "moving close to solving the mystery of MH370," Malaysia's deputy transport minister said Friday, adding that a piece of wreckage found in the Indian Ocean has been confirmed as coming from a Boeing 777.

"I believe that we are moving close to solving the mystery of MH370. This could be the convincing evidence that MH370 went down in the Indian Ocean," Abdul Aziz Kaprawi told Agence France Presse.

Australian authorities Friday said the discovery of plane wreckage, even if found to be from MH370, would not narrow down the location of the main debris field or solve the mystery of why the jet crashed.

The wreckage, which is two-meters (six-feet) long, was found on a beach on the French island of La Reunion in the Indian Ocean and is expected to be analysed in France on Saturday.

Israel held an emotional funeral Tuesday for four Jews killed by an Islamist gunman in Paris, with thousands turning out to mourn the victims of an attack that shook the Jewish community.

Shock and sorrow was palpable in the crowd as family members and top Israeli officials stood to pay tribute to the four men who were shot dead on Friday when an Islamic extremist stormed a kosher supermarket.

More than 100,000 people gathered across France to pay tribute to the victims of Wednesday's massacre by Islamist gunmen in Paris, as thousands also rallied in other European cities and the "I Am Charlie" hashtag swept the Internet.

With the gunmen still on the loose in Paris after killing 12 people, defiant crowds swarmed into the Place de la Republique, barely a kilometer (half a mile) from the scene of the bloodbath at the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly.

French police on Monday dismantled a network sending jihadist fighters to Syria in a series of dawn raids that saw them nab 10 suspects across the country, said Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

Elite and anti-terror police units descended on around a dozen targets, mostly in the southern region of Toulouse, but also around Paris and in the northern region of Normandy.

French police stormed a bank in Toulouse on Wednesday, arresting a gunman with psychiatric problems who claimed to be an al-Qaida militant and freeing his two hostages after a seven-hour siege.

The 26-year-old, who had taken four bank employees hostage in the morning in the same area where serial killer Mohamed Merah lived and was shot dead by police in March, was wounded in the stomach in the assault, police sources said.

The al-Qaida-inspired gunman who killed seven people in France was a gifted student who had a difficult childhood and showed signs of a violent streak, according to details of a police probe quoted Tuesday in Le Monde.

Mohamed Merah was shot dead by police on March 22 at the end of a 32-hour siege at his flat in the southern French city of Toulouse.

Firebrand leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon gathered thousands of supporters in Marseille on Saturday, on a weekend of rallies before the first round of France's presidential vote.

Communist-backed Melenchon, who has shaken up the vote with a surge in the polls, will be hoping for a repeat of rallies in Paris and Toulouse that were the biggest of the campaign, drawing tens of thousands onto the streets.

The 17 people detained by French police in a crackdown on suspected Islamist networks were on Sunday remanded in custody for at least another 24 hours, a source close to the inquiry told AFP.

Friday's arrests were made in connection with a probe into an alleged terror plot and under French anti-terror laws the suspects can be held without charge until Tuesday.