French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Thursday there were no signs that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was about to be overthrown.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Thursday there were no signs that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was about to be overthrown.

"Things are not moving. The solution that we had hoped for, and by that I mean the fall of Bashar and the arrival of the (opposition) coalition to power, has not happened," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in his annual New Year's address to the press.

Fabius told RFI radio in December "the end is nearing" for Assad. But on Thursday, he said international mediation and discussions about the crisis that began in March 2011 were not getting anywhere. "There are no recent positive signs," he said.

He said Syrian opposition leaders and representatives of some 50 nations and organizations would meet in Paris on January 28 to discuss how to fulfill previous commitments.

France became the first European country to recognize Syria’s opposition coalition on November 13, 2012. Paris said it would look into the issue of arming the militant groups in Syria.

The so-called Syrian National Council (SNC) was formed in November 2012 with Western and Arab backing in Qatar after opposition groups signed a unity agreement to form a new leadership against the Syrian president under pressure from the United States, Qatar and the Saudi regime.

On November 16, 2012, Paris said the European Union’s arms embargo against Syria should be lifted so that France can supply weapons to the militants.