Hundreds of thousands of people rallied Monday at a state-sponsored protest in Russia's Muslim North Caucasus province of Chechnya against the publication of Prophet Mohammed cartoons in the wake of Islamist attacks in France.

An AFP journalist at the event put the attendance figure at several hundred thousand, while Russia's interior ministry said over 800,000 people had flooded into central Grozny for the demonstration.

French President Francois Hollande's ratings, scraping historic lows just weeks ago, have soared in the aftermath of deadly Islamist attacks in Paris, data showed on Monday.

Hollande's ratings leapt by a record 21 percentage points to 40 percent, according to an opinion poll carried out by the Ifop polling company.

Negotiators for Iran and six global powers striving to reach a complex deal on Tehran's nuclear program had "serious and useful" discussions in Geneva Sunday and will meet again next month, the EU said.

High level officials from the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia met with Iran's deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi for a day of talks as part of "ongoing diplomatic efforts to find a comprehensive solution to the Iranian nuclear issue," the European Union said in a message sent to journalists.

Police in Niger on Sunday fired tear gas and arrested dozens at a banned opposition protest, a day after deadly riots over a depiction of the Prophet Mohammed in French weekly Charlie Hebdo.

Around 300 demonstrators gathered in the center of the capital Niamey for a long-planned march on parliament, defying a ban on demonstrations announced on Saturday.

Security is being bolstered at the Paris fashion shows which open on Wednesday following the deadly Islamist attacks in the French capital and European swoops on other suspected jihadists.

Celebrities and others attending the event were reported to be skittish over security at the globally mediatized shows, which run to January 29.

Protests against French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were held across Pakistan on Sunday as thousands of people in almost all major cities chanted slogans against its printing of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Workers from both religious and secular political parties gathered in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, Quetta, Peshawar, Multan and many other cities and burnt effigies of French president Francois Hollande and of cartoonists at the magazine along with French flags.

Iranian students have called for a demonstration Monday outside the French embassy in Tehran in response to a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed published by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, media reports said.

News of the planned protest led the French ambassador to announce the embassy would close on Monday and advise expatriates to avoid the area.

Police in Niger fired tear gas Sunday to break up a banned opposition demonstration in the capital Niamey, a day after deadly riots over the publication by France's Charlie Hebdo magazine of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.

Around 300 demonstrators gathered in central Niamey for a long-planned march on parliament, defying a ban on demonstrations announced on Saturday.

The second Islamist gunman in the Charlie Hebdo magazine attack has been given a secretive burial in an unmarked grave near Paris, authorities said Sunday, as police across Europe probed jihadist threats.

Cherif Kouachi, one of two brothers who killed 12 people in the attack on the satirical weekly January 7, was buried just before midnight Saturday in a cemetery in Gennevilliers, a day after his older brother Said was discreetly buried in the northeastern city of Reims.

Train service through the Channel Tunnel between France and Britain resumed early Sunday, a day after a lorry fire forced the crucial link's closure and suspension of all trains, operator Eurotunnel said.

"Our passenger service is currently operating to schedule with up to one departure per hour," the firm said on its website.