A crushing defeat at the hands of his old rival Nicolas Sarkozy is a bad omen for President Francois Hollande two years ahead of a presidential election, analysts said Monday, with the far-right also growing in power.

The Socialists lost nearly half the councils they controlled in local elections on Sunday as Sarkozy benefited from the government's unpopularity to reinvigorate his center-right opposition.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced Monday he was canceling a trip to Germany in the wake of his party's drubbing in local polls.

The Socialists suffered a major defeat in Sunday elections, losing around half the local councils they controlled.

A crushing defeat at the hands of his old rival Nicolas Sarkozy is a bad omen for President Francois Hollande two years ahead of a presidential election, analysts said Monday, with the far-right also growing in power.

The Socialists lost nearly half the councils they controlled in local elections on Sunday as Sarkozy benefited from the government's unpopularity to reinvigorate his center-right opposition.

French voters looked to have given the ruling Socialists a drubbing in run-off local polls on Sunday, while boosting the prospects for former president Nicolas Sarkozy and the far-right ahead of 2017 presidential polls. 

Right-wing parties, spearheaded by Sarkozy's UMP, took between 64 and 70 councils out of a possible 98, according to projections, as voters punished the socialist government of President Francois Hollande for failing to revive the slumping economy. 

Forensic teams have isolated 78 distinct DNA strands from body parts at the Germanwings crash site in the French Alps, while investigators continued their grim task in the arduous mountain terrain.

As well as trying to identify and return bodies to their families, search teams were also hunting for a second "black box" that has yet to be found six days into the search.

France's ruling Socialists look set for a drubbing with local polls Sunday expected to deliver a boost for former president Nicolas Sarkozy and far-right challenger Marine Le Pen.

A heavy defeat for the Socialists would be a bad sign in the runup to the 2017 presidential elections, in which Sarkozy hopes to wrest power back from the leftist government that has struggled with a sluggish economy and high unemployment.

Ukraine government forces on Saturday accused pro-Russian separatists of using Grad multiple rocket launchers overnight in the country's war-torn east in violation of a truce deal signed last month.

Military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told reporters that separatists fired the heavy weapons towards the village of Novotoshkivka from their Lugansk stronghold.

The co-pilot who crashed a passenger jet into the French Alps, killing all 150 aboard, worried "health problems" would dash his dreams and vowed one day to do something to "change the whole system", an ex-girlfriend told a German newspaper.

The 26-year-old woman, identified only as Maria W., recalled in an interview with the mass-circulation Bild daily how Andreas Lubitz told her: "One day I'm going to do something that will change the whole system, and everyone will know my name and remember."

Even as he breaks down in tears, judge Alexander Klyanoshkin admits no regrets about ending a decade on the bench in his government-held hometown in eastern Ukraine to serve in the pro-Russian breakaway republic of Donetsk.

Along with his wife and children, Klyanoshkin made the 50 kilometers (30 miles) journey south to sign up as a judge in the fledgling court system being established by rebels in their war-scarred capital. 

A nuclear deal with Iran is possible but Tehran must make "new efforts" to clinch agreement, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Friday.

"We wish to have an agreement and it is possible, but there has to be new progress," Fabius told reporters at U.N. headquarters ahead of his trip to Lausanne to join the talks now in their final stretch.