France on Wednesday expressed regret over a Tunisian court's decision to sentence three female European activists to four months in jail over their topless anti-Islamist demonstration last month. "While we hoped for a measure of clemency, we cannot help but regret the severity of this sentence," said the French foreign ministry in a statement.

Tunisian police detained a Ukrainian topless activist in the capital Tunis before expelling her from the North African country on Tuesday, a leader of the women's protest movement Femen said. "Some men entered her hotel room, ordered her to take her belongings and drove to the police... She was deported and is now on a plane to Kiev. Her passport has been given to the pilot," Femen's leader in Paris, Inna Shevchenko, told AFP on the phone. The Tunisian interior ministry, which deals with such issues, could not be reached for comment on the matter late on Tuesday.

While some Tunisians believe Femen activist Amina Sboui is being harshly treated for her anti-Islamist protest, there is little public sympathy for three European women who bared their breasts in support of her. The three women, two French and one German, face jail terms of up to a year when they go on trial in Tunis on Wednesday, although their lawyer is confident of a lighter sentence.

A Tunisian judge on Thursday announced fresh charges against a young Tunisian woman with the topless protest group Femen, as three Europeans began a second night in custody after baring their breasts. Amina Sboui, better known by her pseudonym Tyler, was remanded in custody and would be charged with indecency and desecrating a cemetery, crimes punishable by up to two years in jail, the presiding judge told AFP.