French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe on Sunday decried the "silence" of the U.N. Security Council on Syria's deadly crackdown on protests, saying the situation was becoming "intolerable".

"The massacre continues, the silence of the Security Council too. This situation is becoming intolerable," he said at a press conference during a visit to Myanmar.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati is expected to travel to France in February at the invitation of his French counterpart Francois Fillon, reported the daily al-Mustaqbal on Sunday.

Sources told the daily that the visit was scheduled for late January, but French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Premier Fillon, and Foreign Minister Alain Juppe’s busy schedule delayed the visit to February.

A French Mirage and a Saudi F-15 collided in the kingdom's northern region of Tabuk without causing casualties, state news agency SPA quoted a military official as saying on Saturday.

"During a joint exercise on air engagement a French Mirage aircraft belonging to the French armed forces collided with a Saudi armed forces' F-15," said the statement.

The eurozone economy plunged back into crisis on Friday as France and Austria were stripped of their triple-A credit ratings and talks to agree a Greek debt write-down collapsed.

The euro plunged to 16-month lows against the dollar on what proved a grim Friday 13th for EU policy makers, and in particular for France's President Nicolas Sarkozy.

France on Friday opened a murder probe into the killing of a French journalist in Syria, amid suspicions of regime collusion in the first death of a Western journalist since protests began 10 months ago.

Judicial sources said a murder enquiry had been opened into the killing on Wednesday of 43-year-old France 2 television reporter Gilles Jacquier during a government-organized trip to Homs, a flashpoint for anti-regime protests.

France's Louvre museum plans to send more than 20 artworks to Japan, including Fukushima prefecture, near the stricken nuclear plant, in order to show solidarity with the disaster-hit country.

The exhibition will run from April 20 to September 17 in Japan's Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, said Jean-Luc Martinez, director of the department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities at the Louvre.

Men may find it the ultimate turn-on, but the G-string is on its way out in France, ditched by droves of women who have found comfier -- and more flattering -- ways to look sexy, a study showed Thursday.

"Back in the 1990s, the G-string was the key lingerie item for French women, but its star has faded," said Cecile Guerin, exhibition director for the International Lingerie Fair taking place in Paris next week.

France said on Thursday it respected the decision of some Arab League observers to resign from the Syria monitoring mission but said it remained crucial to ending repression.

Arab League officials confirmed that two monitors had quit the mission, including an Algerian who accused the Syrian regime of duping his colleagues.

A court in France on Thursday rejected a prosecutors' request for a couple to be barred from naming their son Daemon after a character in television series "The Vampire Diaries".

Prosecutors had brought Lionel and Blandine Defontaine, from Busigny in northern France, to court under a French law that prevents parents from giving names that would be "contrary to the interests of a child".

Ratings agency Fitch said on Tuesday it does not plan to downgrade France's top triple-A credit rating in 2012 unless the country suffers major economic shocks.

"Fitch maintains its position from December. In the absence of important shocks that could be linked to a strong worsening of the situation in the Eurozone, Fitch does not foresee modifying its negative outlook (on the ratings) before 2013," a Fitch spokeswoman said.