The head of Paris' powerful criminal investigation force was charged and immediately suspended late Thursday over allegations that he leaked details of a probe to a fellow top officer who was under inquiry.

Just minutes after the Paris prosecutor's office said it was charging Bernard Petit, the French interior ministry announced his suspension and named Christian Sainte, head of the judicial force for the city of Marseille, as his replacement.

Several hundred demonstrators protested against an appearance by French far-right leader Marine Le Pen at Britain's prestigious Oxford Union debating society on Thursday.

Protesters held up placards with slogans such as "Le Pen never again" and "Oxford Union is offering a platform for fascists", an AFP reporter at the scene said.

French fighter jets have "neutralized" 50 Islamic State group militants, along with several vehicles in recent days in Iraq, the army said in a statement on Thursday. 

The vehicles were destroyed in an unplanned "opportunistic strike" on Wednesday, the statement on the past week's operations said. 

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy came under fire Thursday after a media report alleging he was at a paid conference in the Middle East while his party is in turmoil.

Sarkozy, head of the conservative UMP party, traveled to Abu Dhabi for a "conference that was very private and very well paid," alleged the Marianne weekly, without specifying the amount.

President Francois Hollande called Thursday on the international community "to act" in the fight against extremism in Africa rather than "give lessons", saying France could not go it alone.

The African Union has backed plans for a regional five-nation force of 7,500 troops to defeat the deadly rise of Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria, and Chad has since deployed its army to join the fight against the jihadists.

Niger is set to send troops to Nigeria for the multi-national battle against Boko Haram after scores of people were killed in a fresh onslaught by the Islamist fighters in a key border town.

Intervention from Niger would open a new northern front in the increasingly regional fight against the Islamist insurgents who killed over a hundred people, including 19 soldiers, on Wednesday in a rampage in the Cameroonian town of Fotokol on Nigeria's border.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to France in April for what would be the one-time pariah's first trip to Europe since his election, his office said Thursday.

Modi is "looking forward to his visit to France in April," his office said in a statement, confirming an invitation from France's top diplomat.

Al-Qaida said Thursday that Harith al-Nadhari, a senior figure who threatened more attacks on France after last month's Charlie Hebdo killings, had died in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen.

Nadhari and three other militants were killed in a January 31 "crusader American drone strike against their car" in the southern Shabwa province, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula said on Twitter.

Director of the Department of the Middle East and North Africa at the French Foreign Ministry Jean-François Girault is expected to head on Monday to the Vatican to meet with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi.

According to An Nahar newspaper published on Thursday, the French diplomat, who ended a two-day official visit to Lebanon will meet with al-Rahi and senior officials at the Vatican to tackle the presidential deadlock in Lebanon.

Maxence Hamard never used to spend much time thinking about French society, but all that changed dramatically one month ago when Islamist attackers wrought terror in Paris over three, long days.

"Now, I change my mind all the time on all sorts of issues," the 23-year-old student says in a cafe near the site of the first attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, where flowers, cartoons and messages form a makeshift shrine.