Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea condemned on Wednesday the attacks against the French unit in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon that took place near Sidon on Tuesday, thanking the French government for all its support for Lebanon.

He noted: “The security situation can never turn to normal as long as there are hundreds of thousands of unofficial security apparatuses.”

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe condemned with "greatest firmness" the attack that targeted French U.N. peacekeepers in a roadside bombing in the southern city of Sidon.

Juppe called on the Lebanese authorities on Tuesday to "do everything necessary to bring the perpetrators to justice."

A Guinean woman who has accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in a New York hotel was on the offensive Monday, saying she wanted him to go to jail.

"Because of him, they call me a prostitute," Nafissatou Diallo told Newsweek magazine in her first public interview since the alleged attack by the former powerful French politician in a Manhattan hotel suite in May.

French Ambassador to Lebanon Denis Pietton denied on Monday that France had taken a decision to halt military aid to the Lebanese army, noting a contradiction between this matter and Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji’s recent visit to the European country.

French sources told the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat that French military support for Lebanon would continue and that the decision to suspend a missile agreement with Lebanon was due to the regional situation.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati is expected to meet with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem during his family trip to France, As Safir daily reported Monday.

Miqati’s private visit abroad is his second since the formation of his government on June 13.

Former Premier Saad Hariri is expected to return to Beirut from France next week to attend Iftar banquets, sources close to the Mustaqbal movement leader told An Nahar daily Monday.

Hariri “will return to Lebanon in the first days of the month of Ramadan early August to be present in a series of Iftars held at the BIEL exhibition center rather than Qoreitem where Iftars were held in previous years,” the sources said.

Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji returned to Lebanon on Friday after a four-day visit to France where he met with a number of French military officials including Chief of Staff Edouard Guillaud, reported the daily An Nahar Sunday.

The Army Command said in a statement that Qahwaji toured a number of French military bases, with talks with French officials focusing on the French unit in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and bilateral ties between the two armies.

A burqa and niqab ban came into force in Belgium on Saturday with the threat of fines and jail time, but the law faced an immediate court challenge from two women who wear the full Islamic veil.

Belgium joined France as the second European Union nation to enforce such a ban.

A teenage girl whose forceful bundling into a BMW in the south of France sparked a nationwide appeal for witnesses was the victim of a traditional Chechen pre-marriage kidnapping, it emerged Friday.

Witnesses had told how on Sunday three people in a BMW had snatched the previously unidentified girl, aged 16 or 17, as she left a park with a companion who appeared to be involved in the abduction.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat is seeking to bridge the gap between ex-PM Saad Hariri’s al-Mustaqbal movement and the two main Shiite parties Amal and Hizbullah.

A minister close to Jumblat told al-Liwaa daily published Saturday that Jumblat, through his meetings in Lebanon and abroad, is seeking to revive contacts between al-Mustaqbal as the main representative of Sunnis in Lebanon and both Amal and Hizbullah.