A French minister said there was no such thing as moderate Islam, calling recent election successes by Islamic parties in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia "worrying" in an interview published Saturday.

Jeannette Bougrab, a junior minister with responsibility for youth, told Le Parisien newspaper that legislation based on Islamic sharia law "inevitably" imposed restrictions on rights and freedoms.

A group of Salafists disrupted classes on Monday at a university west of the capital Tunis, demanding a stop to mixed-sex classes and for female students to wear full face veils, officials said.

"A group of Salafists, dressed like the Afghans, have been camped in front of my office since early afternoon," Habib Kazdaghli, the dean of faculty at the University of Manuba, told Agence France Presse.

Tunisia entered a new era on Tuesday with the inaugural session of its first-ever democratically elected constituent assembly, 10 months after a popular uprising ended years of autocracy.

The 217-member assembly, the first elected body of the Arab Spring, was expected to confirm a deal whereby the Islamist Ennahda party and two other parties split the country's top three jobs between themselves.

Arab regimes should not fear their peoples' aspirations for democracy and reform, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told a pro-democracy forum in Kuwait on Tuesday.

"A year after the start of the Arab Spring ... states gathering here should show they do not fear the aspirations of their peoples and civil society," Juppe told the opening session of the eighth Forum for the Future.

Tunisia enters a new phase of democratic rule Tuesday following a power-sharing deal between the three main political parties sealed 10 months after a popular uprising ended years of dictatorship.

The North African nation will Tuesday inaugurate its elected constituent assembly, which is to confirm the appointment of Hamadi Jebali of the moderate Islamist Ennahda party as prime minister and two other key appointments.

Hamadi Jebali of the Islamist Ennahda party was poised Saturday to become Tunisia's new prime minister under a deal struck by the country's three main parties.

Under the agreement, to be announced Monday, veteran rights activist and opposition politician Moncef Marzouki would become president, according to Abdelwaheb Matar, a senior official in the Congress for the Republic party.

Tunisia's election winners on Friday reached a power-sharing agreement under which an Islamist will be named premier and two leftists will be named president and speaker of the constitutional assembly, media reports said.

The Islamist Ennahda party nominated its deputy leader Hamadi Jebali to lead the government, while Moncef Marzouki, head of the center-left Congress for the Republic, will be named Tunisia’s president, and Mustapha Ben Jaafar, head of the left-wing Ettakatol, will be named speaker of the constitutional assembly.

Morocco opened its campaign for November 25 legislative elections Saturday, with moderate Islamists seen as possible winners and fears of a low turnout in the country's second vote this year.

In the last parliamentary elections in 2007 turnout was a mere 37 percent, a sign of Moroccans' lack of interest in public affairs.

Tunisia's constituent assembly will meet for the first time on November 22, officials announced Saturday, beginning a process of political and constitutional reform in the birthplace of the Arab Spring.

Interim president Foued Mebazaa will sign a decree summoning the assembly and "outlining the procedures for a successful inauguration", said officials.

Libya's former Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi has applied for U.N. political refugee status to try to prevent his extradition from Tunisia, one of his lawyers said Friday.

"If the HCR (the UN High Commissioner for Refugees) grants Mr. Mahmoudi refugee status it will no longer be possible to extradite him," said the lawyer, Taufik Wanas.