Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected "international dictates" ahead of a visit by France's top diplomat, with Paris advocating a U.N. resolution laying out parameters for peace talks.

With negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians stalled for more than a year, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was to hold separate talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders Sunday in a push to revive talks.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Saturday urged the resumption of Middle East peace talks, while warning that continued Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank damaged chances of a final deal. 

"What's important is that negotiations restart," Fabius told reporters during a visit to Cairo, where he held what he said were intensive talks with Egyptian officials on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy came under fire in France and Italy on Friday over comments he made comparing the influx of migrants into Europe to water gushing from a burst pipe.

Current President Francois Hollande called for gravity and restraint in public debate.

Defense Minister Samir Moqbel and a French official have denied a report that Saudi Arabia has asked French authorities to freeze the delivery of weapons to the Lebanese army under a Saudi grant.

Al-Liwaa daily on Friday quoted Moqbel as saying that information about the freeze of the delivery of arms is not true.

It is "very probable" that al-Qaida-linked militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar was killed in a U.S. air strike, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday, but he admitted he could not be sure.

Belmokhtar is an Algerian believed to have been behind a number of attacks, including the 2013 siege of an Algerian gas plant in which 38 hostages, mostly Westerners, were killed.

France's Socialist government won a parliamentary vote of no confidence Thursday over a key package of reforms designed to energize the country's sluggish economy.

The conservative opposition proposed the motion after Prime Minister Manuel Valls used a rare constitutional device earlier this week to push through the reforms without MPs being given the chance to vote.

Saudi Arabia has asked French authorities to freeze the delivery of weapons to the Lebanese army under a Saudi grant, As Safir daily reported on Thursday.

The newspaper quoted informed French sources as saying that Paris received an official message from Riyadh in May asking it to freeze the delivery of the rest of the arms.

Failure of talks between Greece and its creditors would have "extremely serious" consequences for Europe, France's finance minister warned Wednesday on the eve of a crucial ministerial meeting to discuss the crisis.

A breakdown in talks would be "very serious for Greece but also extremely serious for the European project," Michel Sapin told lawmakers.

The suspected mastermind of an attack on a Paris Jewish restaurant in 1982 that left six people dead and 22 injured, has been arrested in Jordan, a source close to the case said Wednesday.

Zuhair Mohamad Hassan Khalid al-Abassi, alias "Amjad Atta", was one of three men for whom France issued an international arrest warrant earlier this year.

The Lebanese army denied on Wednesday that Milan anti-tank missiles delivered by France to the Lebanese army under a Saudi grant two months ago are dysfunctional.

The military said in a communique that army experts had thoroughly inspected the missiles during delivery.