France's President Francois Hollande on Thursday denounced as "unacceptable" ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine, after speaking briefly with his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko in Germany.

"There are ceasefire violations today and that's unacceptable," Hollande told reporters, adding that "there is a risk of fresh unrest and we need to warn them of that".

A play by best-selling French author Michel Houellebecq -- whose book imagining France under Islamic rule stirred controversy -- has been pulled from a Croatian arts festival due to security fears, organizers said on Thursday.

Houellebecq's drama "Elementary Particles" ("Les Particules elementaires") was to have been staged at this year's Dubrovnik Summer Festival.

Head of al-Mustaqbal Movement and Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri kicked off his two-day official visit to Moscow on Wednesday by meeting with Russian FM Sergei Lavrov.

Talks underlined the latest developments in Lebanon and the region, a statement issued by Hariri's press office read.

French police on Tuesday said they would probe a shocking video showing violence against migrants in the northern port town of Calais, from where they hope to cross to Britain.

The amateur footage shows policemen repeatedly beating and kicking migrants who had been hiding in trucks en route to Britain, hoping to secure a better life across the English Channel.

France and Algeria on Tuesday urged Mali's warring factions to sign a peace deal between the Bamako government and northern rebel groups this week.

"We call in the clearest terms for the signing of this text, in the interest of peace in Mali and the region," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said during a press conference with his counterpart Ramtane Lamamra in Algiers.

After a historic visit to Cuba, French President Francois Hollande landed in Haiti on Tuesday to sign cooperation agreements and support reconstruction efforts that continue since the deadly 2010 earthquake.

Hollande is only the second French head leader to visit what was once France's richest colony in the Caribbean. Then president Nicolas Sarkozy's visited Haiti after the quake, but Hollande's is the first official head of state visit since Haiti won independence in 1804.

French President Francois Hollande called Monday for an end to the US embargo on Cuba, during the first visit by a Western leader to the island since Washington and Havana moved to restore ties.

Addressing the half-century-old trade embargo ahead of meetings with Fidel and Raul Castro, the brothers who have ruled Cuba since its 1959 revolution, Hollande said France will do whatever possible to see that "the measures that have so badly harmed Cuba's development can finally be lifted, repealed."

The founder of France's far-right National Front (FN), Jean-Marie Le Pen, announced Monday he would create his own "grouping" after being suspended from the party for remarks downplaying the Holocaust.

The 86-year-old patriarch assured he had no plans to launch an alternative to the anti-immigrant FN, which his daughter, Marine Le Pen, has led since 2011.

French President Francois Hollande called Monday for an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba during a historic visit to the island, the first by a Western leader since Washington and Havana moved to restore ties.

Speaking on the half-century embargo at the start of his Cuba trip, the first ever by a French leader, Hollande said France will do whatever possible to see that "the measures that have so badly harmed Cuba's development can finally be lifted, repealed."

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi wrapped up the first round of talks with Christian leaders to press them to ease tension and elect a new head of state.

According to An Nahar newspaper published on Saturday, al-Rahi dispatched former Minister Roger Deeb to visit the four Maronite leaders separately.