U.N. rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein on Friday said France should have probed much earlier claims that its soldiers raped children in the Central African Republic between December 2013 and June 2014.

Zeid said the delayed response was all the more difficult to comprehend since people other than the accused must have known of the abuse but not passed the information up the military hierarchy.

French President Francois Hollande congratulated Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron on his election victory Friday and invited the leader to Paris, his office said. 

"The president noted the value he places on the deep friendship between France and the United Kingdom and in reinforcing their partnership in all areas, particularly within the European Union," the Elysee Palace said in a statement. 

Europe held somber ceremonies to mark 70 years since victory over Nazi Germany on Friday as leaders warned of modern day threats such as the war in Ukraine and Islamic extremism.

Celebrations of the WWII victory in Europe were muted a day before Moscow throws a massive military parade which is being snubbed by Western leaders due to tensions over the crisis in Ukraine.

The Central African Republic will take legal action against the French soldiers accused of raping children in exchange for food at a refugee camp, the country's justice minister said Wednesday.

"Legal action will be pursued... These are still very serious acts," said Justice Minister Aristide Sokambi, insisting his nation was not targeting France but individual soldiers. 

Hungry for defense deals, France has cosied up to the Gulf monarchies, winning several billion-euro contracts in the process, but its strategy of backing one side in the region's Sunni-Shia power struggle is risky, say experts.

These are boom times for France's defense industry, with the country signing 15 billion euros ($16.7 billion) worth of weapons deals this year -- almost double its 8.1-billion tally for the whole of 2014. 

French President Francois Hollande admitted to delivering weapons to Syrian rebels in 2012 despite an embargo, according to a new book coming out in France this month.

"We began when we were certain they would end up in the right hands. For the lethal weapons it was our services who delivered them," Hollande told author Xavier Panon in an interview in May last year.

A husband and wife were killed as a missile struck a Saudi border region across from war-torn Yemen, official media said on Wednesday.

They died on Tuesday when a missile hit their building in the Jazan region, civil defense Major Yahya al-Qahtani was quoted as saying by the official Saudi Press Agency.

French judges re-examining the evidence surrounding the 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have concluded their investigations, the prosecutors office in the Paris suburb of Nanterre said Tuesday.

"The judges have closed their dossier and it was sent to the prosecutor on April 30," he said.

Fed up with bawdy remarks and wandering hands, dozens of female French journalists have signed a petition published Tuesday denouncing sexism from male politicians. 

"Get your paws off me!" read the front page of the Liberation newspaper, where 40 female political reporters detailed sexist and lewd behavior suffered while working in the corridors of power.

French lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a new law on Tuesday granting the state sweeping powers to spy on its citizens despite criticism from rights groups that the bill is vague and intrusive.

The law has been in the works for some time but gained additional support after a jihadist killing spree in January that left 17 dead and saw the capital gripped with fear for three days.