French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius Monday called on the Syrian regime to end the siege of rebel-held Madaya and said a halt to air strikes by the regime and its Russian ally was an "absolute necessity."

Speaking two weeks ahead of possible U.N.-brokered peace talks, Fabius said it was an "absolute necessity for Syria and Russia to stop their military operations against civilian populations, and in particular that the ordeal facing Madaya and all the besieged Syrian villages come to an end."

French President Francois Hollande made an unannounced visit to the main mosque in Paris on Sunday, a year after jihadist attacks in the French capital.

"The president had a short conversation and a moment of friendship and fraternity over a cup of tea," a French presidency official said.

French anti-terror investigators were on Friday seeking to identify a man shot dead while trying to storm a Paris police station brandishing a meat cleaver and wearing a fake suicide vest.

The man was shot dead by officers as he ran towards the entrance of the police station waving the meat cleaver and shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest") on Thursday, exactly a year to the day since the massacre of journalists at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper.

Belgian police have found three belts for possible use in suicide attacks, traces of explosives and a fingerprint of wanted Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam at a Brussels flat, prosecutors said Friday.

Prosecutors said Abdeslam might have hidden in the flat after the November 13 attacks, but that they were also working on the theory that the explosive devices used in the massacre could have been made there.

A key French member of the Islamic State group, Salim Benghalem, who had ties to the Charlie Hebdo attackers, was sentenced in absentia by a Paris court on Thursday to 15 years in prison.

Six other men, who have returned from Syria and Iraq, were given sentences of between six and nine years.

French police shot dead a knife-wielding man Thursday as he attacked a police station in Paris, a year to the day since jihadist gunmen killed 12 people at Charlie Hebdo newspaper.

The man reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) and was wearing what appeared to be an explosives vest although it was later found to be a fake, police and government sources said.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was on Tuesday questioned by judges probing her National Front (FN) party for fraud, according to sources close to the investigation.

Le Pen, 47, was questioned for several hours after twice previously having refused to appear before judges investigating the FN's finances.

French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday kicked off a week of commemorations marking the jihadist rampage in Paris that began with an assault on satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and lasted three days, claiming 17 lives.

Hollande, flanked by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, unveiled a plaque at Charlie Hebdo's former offices, where cartoonists who were household names in France, nicknamed Cabu, Wolinski and Charb, were killed along with nine others.

Ever since a jihadist attack on a kosher store left four people dead a year ago, France's Jews have grown used to soldiers patrolling their neighborhoods and schools.

While a comfort to some, the fact that the large Jewish community is forced to live under armed guard only heightens the sense of being a target.

Lassana Bathily was an undocumented migrant from Mali until he became an unlikely hero by saving shoppers' lives during the jihadist attack on a Jewish supermarket in Paris a year ago.

The 25-year-old became the one positive story to emerge from the three days of violence in January, when jihadist attacks on the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly, police and the Jewish Hyper Cacher supermarket in the east of the capital killed a total of 17 people.