The number of anti-Semitic acts doubled in France during 2014, with acts involving physical violence leading the increase, the country's main Jewish group said on Tuesday.

Some 851 anti-Semitic acts were registered in 2014, compared with 423 the year prior, with acts of physical violence jumping to 241 from 105, the CRIF said.

France and the United States are reportedly competing to arm the Lebanese military and benefit from the Saudi grants as it desperately needs weapons to confront the increasing threats by militants, in particular along Lebanon's eastern border.

A source following up the army deals under two Saudi financial grants told al-Akhbar newspaper published on Tuesday that the U.S. arms are very different from the French arms that ODAS company is in charge of delivering to Lebanon.

A French court has blocked parents from naming their baby girl Nutella after the hazelnut spread that is a staple in Gallic households, arguing it would make her the target of mockery.

A registrar recording the baby's birth last September flagged the unusual name to local prosecutors who took it to a family court judge, the prosecutor's office told Agence France-Presse, confirming a story in the Voix du Nord newspaper on Monday.

French President Francois Hollande said Monday that Greece must keep its promises on debt repayments following the Greek anti-austerity Syriza party's stunning election win.

"Commitments have been made and they must be honored," Hollande said at a press conference in Paris, a day after Syriza's win put the heavily indebted country on a collision course with its international creditors.

The Islamic State jihadist group Monday urged Muslims to carry out new attacks after the targeting of France's Charlie Hebdo magazine, in a recording by its spokesman posted online.

Abu Mohamed al-Adnani, referring to attacks in France, Australia, Canada and Belgium, urged "Muslims in Europe and the infidel West to attack the Crusaders where they are." 

Europe is facing a new Jewish exodus in the face of rising anti-Semitism and extremism, the head of the European Jewish Congress (EJC) said Monday.

"Jihadism is very close to Nazism. One could even say that they are two faces of the same evil," EJC chief Moshe Kantor said at a Holocaust forum in the Czech capital Prague.

The body of a French tourist who was kidnapped and beheaded by jihadists in Algeria last September was flown to Paris after a brief ceremony in Algiers on Monday.

Herve Gourdel's headless corpse was found in a booby-trapped grave in the mountainous Kabylie region, east of the capital, on January 15 after a months-long search involving some 3,000 Algerian troops. His head was found in a separate grave.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam has lamented that the government was suffering over the absence of a president despite his determination to improve its productivity.

As Safir daily on Monday quoted Salam as saying that “the work of the government has been transformed into a permanent suffering that takes several forms amid the presidential vacuum.”

Director of the Department of the Middle East and North Africa at the French Foreign Ministry Jean-François Girault will visit Lebanon at the beginning of February to resume his initiative to resolve the ongoing presidential deadlock.

An Nahar newspaper reported on Monday that the French diplomat's visit aims at reviving his initiative and contacts with Lebanese officials.

French President Francois Hollande held talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko and European Council chief Donald Tusk on Sunday to express his "very strong concern" over the surge in violence in eastern Ukraine, the presidency said.

It added that Hollande was also due to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday to discuss the escalation of fighting, after heavy rocket fire killed 30 civilians in the strategic port of Mariupol on Saturday.