The stabbing comes just days after a British soldier was hacked to death on a London street in broad daylight in a suspected terrorist attack that has raised fears of potential copycat strikes. However, there was no immediate confirmation of any link to the France attack on Saturday.

The France military spokesman, Col. Thierry Burkhard, said the French soldier was wounded but that his life was not in danger. He had no immediate further details on the stabbing.

The festival, he says, is “for snobs,” and when he meets a reporter from his native land, he exhales, “It’s so nice to hear an American.” To him, Cannes isn’t an epicenter of rabid Lewis fandom, it’s simply “business,” he says, chomping on gum.

And at 87, Lewis is back in business. Nearly two decades since his last film, he’s at Cannes with “Max Rose,” a modest independent film in which he stars as an elderly man reconciling himself to life without his late wife.

“I’m very happy to relax and stay home with my family, and if something comes up, I’ll consider it,” Lewis, in an interview, said of his return to movies. “That’s the nice part about 87. You just tell people: Oh, you’re very tired.”

At Cannes, Lewis has been anything but tired, both burnishing and tarnishing his legacy as a brilliant comedic performer. His Cannes tribute — the festival paid “homage” to him in an out-of-competition screening of “Max Rose,” as well as with a screening of his 1961 classic “The Ladies Man” — has been overshadowed by his views about female comedians.

In a press conference, Lewis told reporters that his earlier-stated feelings haven’t changed in recent years: Comedy isn’t for women, he claims. A day after his comments roiled women across the Internet, Lewis wasn’t apologetic, saying he sees females as mothers, not stand-ups.

“It’s the truth. I can’t help it,” Lewis says, shrugging. “Women, it’s just wrong. I don’t care that the audience laughs at it and likes it. I don’t happen to like it. I have too much respect for the gender. And I think that they are wrong in doing it. I can’t expect them to stop working, but just don’t work anywhere where I have to look at it.”

It’s a clearly out-of-date attitude that has turned many away from Lewis. In Cannes, “Max Rose” didn’t help his reputation. The film, by first-time filmmaker Daniel Noah, drew terrible reviews at the festival. Variety said only “the most irrationally charitable of Lewis’ fans” will appreciate it.

But such opinions mean little to Lewis. He made the film with Noah purely because he liked the script — the best he’s ever read, he says. It’s the rare film to tell a story about the struggles of growing older, featuring a downbeat performance from Lewis far from the elastic farce his fans are accustomed to seeing.

Asked why he hadn’t made a film since 1995′s “Funny Bones,” Lewis responds: “You see the movies they’re putting out? What am I going to do, discuss that?”

Noah, who wrote the script based on his grandfather, sought out Lewis with little expectation of landing him. Months after sending the screenplay, Lewis called him and committed over the phone. Lewis told him he hadn’t planned to make another film, but decided, “I gotta give them one more Jerry picture.”

“I was braced for a difficult experience,” says Noah. “I saw nothing but horror stories about how he was controlling and irascible and unpredictable and moody. . But I cannot explain to you the chasm between the man that othjcoers seem to know and the man that I know. I have not had a single moment of tension with him, of difficulty. He has been like a grandfather to me.”

Noah says Lewis — who helmed more than a dozen films in his career, including 1963′s “The Nutty Professor” — left the directing completely to him. He gave his famous star little direction, save for the occasional reminder to be more minimal, more “sad clown,” says Noah.

“He’s a wonderful kid,” says Lewis. “When you’re 87, almost everybody’s a kid.”

Lewis has continued to perform concerts — “a wonderful way to make a fortune,” he says. Retirement is not on the table. “I’m happiest when I’m on the stage,” says Lewis, who was honoured with the Academy Awards’ humanitarian award in 2009 after years of telethon hosting for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

“Wherever the audience is is where you want to go,” he says. “And if you’re a ham, like me, you go wherever the action is. You see a lens and a crew and say, ‘Yeah!’”

At the press conference in Cannes, Lewis proved that he still has his pugnacious wit and eagerness for laughs.

Asked about Dean Martin, Lewis’ famed comedy partner in the ’50s, he responded: “He died, you know. When I arrived here and he wasn’t here I knew something was wrong.” (Martin, with whom Lewis parted acrimoniously, died in 1995.)

“I’ve worked hard to sustain a reputation of: If you buy a ticket, you know you’re going to get entertained,” says Lewis. “That’s what I was taught.”

Lewis may be many things — talented, funny, honest, out-of-touch, sexist — but perhaps above all else, he’s an entertainer. “Max Rose” marks his 82nd year performing.

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jake_coyle

The film, the last English-language entry competing for the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, sees Swinton play Eve, a grungy but erudite vampire — who’s married to a forlorn vampire musician, Adam, played by Tom Hiddlestone. Several-hundred-year-old Adam — of Biblical fame — has been living quite happily ever since being expelled from the Garden of Eden.

That is, until the 21st century came along with its excesses and greed and pushed him into a full-flung existential crisis. He cracks, and orders a wooden bullet to kill himself. With such a wacky plot, it’s no surprise the film nearly didn’t get made. It took seven years to find a backer — which Jarmusch blames on the fact producers won’t take creative risks anymore.

“I wanted to make a vampire love-story…The reason it took so long was that no one wanted to give us the money. It’s getting more and more and more difficult for films that are maybe a little unusual or not predictable or not satisfying the expectations of everybody — which is the beauty of cinema, discovering new films of all forms.”

He added: “But look, now we’re here at Cannes.”

Lovers of independent cinema and vampire fans should certainly be pleased the film saw the light of day, or perhaps, night. It quirkily spruces up vampire lore. Adam and Eve are not about blood-sucking and murder — but refined lovers of literature, science, music and learning in general. When Eve’s estranged sister “drinks Ian,” a friend, to death, Eve tells her off saying that in the 21st century people just won’t understand such barbarity. (The verb “drink,” instead of “blood-sucking,” was one of the many moments that provoked raucous laughter from spectators.) It’s not like they can just dump the bodies in the Thames with the tuberculosis sufferers like in old times, she says. Now, in the 21st century, they get their blood from the blood-transfusion section of a hospital. Alongside this, John Hurt plays a vampire Christopher Marlowe, who’s still bitter that Shakespeare became more famous.

Swinton said the film provided a unique opportunity to reinvent the vampire genre.

“There’s a feeling of beautiful luxury about approaching this kind of portrait, because you can come with a Martian’s-eye view… We were able to create our own lexicon,” she said. Here the vampires elegantly cover their mouths; and have a strange ritual with gloves that goes unexplained.

At heart, the film is the love story between Adam and Eve, who try to rekindle their love despite living in different places, he in Detroit and she in Tangiers. It is as touching as it is odd.

“We knew we needed to show a long … that was so evolved that what they actually say to each other is the tip of the iceberg of a conversation they’ve been having for 500 years. That was very interesting. We wanted to show a couple who are trying to stay together. Trying to live obviously but also trying to live together.” At one comic moment, Eve looks at a grainy photo where they’re both dressed in 19th century clothing. “Our third wedding,” she sighs.

The love story between immortal beings also raised philosophical questions for the leading man Hiddlestone, who said playing Adam was a “fascinating prospect” — a chance of breaking away from the more conventional superhero roles, such villain Loki in 2011′s Marvel Studios film Thor, for which he is the most famous.

“The idea of exploring love in the context of immortality — is (it) a blessing because it recurs, and what does that do to your commitments?” he said.

When news originally got out that Jarmusch, the director of 1999′s dark samurai film “Ghostdog,” which was also nominated for the Palme d’Or, was going to do a love film on vampires, left many unconvinced. But Swinton was not one of them and backed the project from the start.

“I was never surprised,” she said. “I felt like saying (Jim) you’ve been making vampire films for years.”

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Thomas Adamson can be followed at Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP

The Columbus Dispatch reports that Perry was drawn to Finland Middle School on Friday after seeing a TV report about teacher Mary Mulvany starting a foundation to raise scholarship money to cover fees.

South-Western schools earned national attention when athletics and extra-curricular activities were eliminated after a failed levy in 2009. The ballot request was later approved by voters, and sports, clubs and other activities were resurrected for a fee.

Perry says he wants to sponsor as many children as possible and wants part of the money to go toward Finland and some to the foundation.

Opening a summit of the African Union in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said the organization’s original pan-Africanist aspirations remain relevant for a continent where many states are still struggling to overcome rampant poverty and violence.

“This historic day marks not only a great leap forward in the Pan-Africanist quest for freedom, independence and unity but also the beginning of our collective endeavour for the realizations of Africa’s socio-economic emancipation,” he said. “The major responsibility of the current and future generations of Africans is.to create a continent free from poverty and conflict and an Africa whose citizens would enjoy middle- income status.”

AU chair Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said the pan-Africanism championed by the organization “united and inspired our people across the continent and globe never to accept oppression.”

The festivities in Addis Ababa, where the organization was born 50 years ago, were attended by dozens of African leaders and foreign dignitaries including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Founded in May 1963 by a handful of liberated African nations, the Organization of African Unity — as it was known then — was at the time preoccupied with ending apartheid in South Africa and colonialism across the continent. Now the AU is focused on Agenda 2063, a blueprint that officials here say will eventually lead to the political and economic integration of Africa. African leaders are expected to discuss this 50-year strategic plan during the summit.

By the 1970s, after almost all of Africa had been liberated from colonialism, the Organization of African Unity set its sights on ending white racist rule in South Africa. The organization granted the African National Congress —the party of Nelson Mandela that has governed South Africa since 1994 —observer status at a time when it was still outlawed by South Africa’s apartheid regime.

President Jacob Zuma of South Africa praised the AU in a statement Saturday, saying the organization was a force for freedom and the economic emancipation of all African people.

“The (Organization of African Unity) therefore created a mechanism for the African intelligentsia and those at the forefront of the struggle against colonialism to co-ordinate and intensify their co-operation to emancipate the continent from colonial subjugation,” the statement said. “The OAU thus provided a sense of purpose for the African people to restore their freedom, dignity and to strive for a better life for all Africans.”

The 53-member AU has been trying to emerge as a force for stability on a continent regularly troubled by violence, conflicts and coups. As the AU strives to make peaceful transfers of power across Africa the norm, it often sanctions coup leaders and suspends membership of states. But it also often fails to mobilize resources to enforce its decisions, the reason some activist groups want to see more robust action from the organization. This week a coalition of over 120 civil society groups from across Africa and the Middle East issued a warning about conflicts in Sudan, urging the AU to support a bolder approach to peace there.

The organization is still a long way from its founders’ dream of a united Africa. South Africa is an economic power, while citizens in countries like Somalia, Sudan, Congo and Chad suffer from warfare and poverty. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is currently in the grips of bloody violence orchestrated by a radical Islamic sect that threatens to divide the country.

But the continent also boasts nine of the world’s 15 fastest growing economies and remains attractive to Western and emerging powers looking for natural resources. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa says Africa’s medium-term growth prospects remain strong, at 4.8 per cent in 2013 and a projected 5.1 per cent in 2014. The construction costs of the new building in Addis Ababa where celebrations are taking place were paid by China, whose growing economic footprint in Africa has been a cause for concern in the West. The visit to Ethiopia is Kerry’s first trip to Africa as U.S. secretary of state.

Each balloon contains a written message of peace from volunteers around the world, said Colombian-American artist Yazmany Arboleda, who organized the “We Believe in Balloons” day.

More than 100 Afghan artists and other volunteers were up before dawn Saturday to put the messages inside and fill the balloons with helium. Then they took to the streets of downtown Kabul’s riverfront to distribute them to passers-by.

The colorful spectacle clearly delighted many Afghans, even as the war with Taliban insurgents grinds into its 12th year since the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban’s hard-line regime.

Just the day before, a militant assault in the heart of Kabul killed four people plus the six attackers.

“This brings colour to Afghanistan and I want to see my people smiling and happy,” said 22-year-old Afghan volunteer Nargis Azaryun as she passed out the balloons. “We hope that by giving away 10,000 pink balloons, we will give this city 10,000 ideas of life beyond war.”

Arboleda, who has launched similar events in India, Japan, and Kenya, said the Afghan version is important to allow the world to see the country’s people, not just the conflict.

“I see this project as a platform that transforms the single story of catastrophe that the world sees in Afghanistan into multiple narratives that highlight our shared humanity,” he said.

Another blast in the country’s east killed 12 people at a mosque during evening prayers late Friday. Authorities in Ghazni province say explosives transported by suspected Taliban fighters accidentally detonated while they were stopped at a mosque.

In Kabul, a man wearing an explosives-filled vest died when the vest went off as he left a home in the capital’s southeast, police spokesman Hashmatullah Stanekzai said. No one else was killed or wounded, but the accidental detonation may have averted another attack in the city, which has seen two deadly suicide attacks in just over a week.

On Friday afternoon, a suicide car bomber kicked off an assault targeting a guest house for aid workers with the International Organization for Migration.

Kabul police on Saturday raised the siege death toll from two to four, including a 6-year-old child, two compound guards and one policeman. All six of the attackers were killed, one in the bomb and five more in an hours-long shootout with police in the upscale neighbourhood that is home to the United Nations’ office as well as the headquarters of the Afghan Public Protection Force and a hospital run by the National Directorate for Security.

Four IOM workers were wounded including an Italian woman badly burned by a grenade, the aid group said.

The siege came eight days after another suicide car bomb hit a U.S. military convoy, killing two U.S. soldiers, four American contractors and nine Afghan bystanders.

Protecting major population centres like Kabul is one of the most visible tests for Afghan security forces’ ability to keep security now that international combat forces are pulling back ahead of the 2014 withdrawal.

Most of the U.S.-led military coalition will leave by the end of next year, more than a dozen years after launching the war to topple the Taliban regime over its sheltering of al-Qaida’s leadership.

In the eastern province of Ghazni, another explosion at a local mosque killed four civilians and eight militants during Friday night prayers, local official Qasim Desewal said Saturday

He said that the Taliban had apparently stopped at the mosque in Andar district while travelling and the explosives they were carrying went off while they were inside.

Ahead of Sunday’s presentation of this year’s Palme d’Or, here are the last 20 years of Cannes’ Palme winners:

2012: “Amour,” Michael Haneke

2011: “The Tree of Life,” Terrence Malick

2010: “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives,” Apichatpong Weerasethakul

2009: “The White Ribbon,” Michael Haneke

2008: “The Class,” Laurent Cantet

2007: “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” Cristian Mungiu

2006: “The Wind That Shakes The Barley,” Ken Loach

2005: “L’Enfant,” Jean-Pierre Dardenne

2004: “Fahrenheit 9-11,” Michael Moore

2003: “Elephant,” Gus Van Sant

2002: “The Pianist,” Roman Polanski

2001: “La Stanza del Figlio,” Nanni Moretti

2000: “Dancer in the Dark,” Lars Von Trier

1999: “Rosetta,” Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

1998: “Eternity and a Day,” Theo Angelopoulos

1997: “The Eel,” Shohei Imamura; and “Taste of Cherry,” Abbas Kiarostami

1996: “Secrets & Lies,” Mike Leigh

1995: “Underground,” Emir Kusturica

1994: “Pulp Fiction,” Quentin Tarantino

1993: “Farewell My Concubine,” Kaige Chen; and “The Piano,” Jane Campion

Rasoulof is also Iranian, his movies are banned in his homeland and he’s been sentenced to jail by the Islamic regime there.

Still, Rasoulof, who managed to make it to the Cannes Film Festival to show his film, says “Manuscripts” shouldn’t be construed as his life.

“It’s not a documentary, it’s fiction inspired by an event which is very much true. I mean, we know the details of the event because there are survivors, there is testimonies, writings, memories about that thing,” Rasoulof said in an interview on Friday after the film debuted here.

“I have met some of those people, the key people involved in that. So it’s very much a true story, a real thing, but from that point on it’s an inspiration. I was inspired by a true story and then I tell my own story based on it.”

Two years ago, Rasoulof and fellow director Jafar Panahi were arrested in Iran for filming without a permit. The pair received six years In prison and were banned from filmmaking for 20 years on charges that included “making propaganda” against the ruling system, but Rasoulof’s sentence was later reduced to a year on appeal. He is currently on bail.

His film “Goodbye” won a prize at Cannes in 2011, but the director wasn’t allowed to travel to France to accept it. Somehow, he managed to get to Cannes this year to show “Manuscripts Don’t Burn,” which is competing in the sidebar competition, Un Certain Regard.

Rasoulof said he wanted to do the movie to explore the “dark points in the intellectual history of Iran.

“I’ve always been attached to understanding those dark points and getting in to those dark points and digging into them and trying to find out what, why and how of these dark points in the intellectual history.”

“Manuscripts Don’t Burn” was made clandestinely in Iran, and the names of its cast and crew do not appear on the credits.

Rasoulof said he knew from the start he had a big task on his hands.

“I knew that is was going to be almost mission impossible. There is going to be no legal permit, license, the government is going to be opposed to it, authorities and everything,” he said.

He added: “We knew that the only way to do it is if we stick together. … We heavily relied on ourselves and the team and that was the only way we could do it.”

Much of the film appears to have been shot in Iran, but Rasoulof, who produced the movie himself, was staying tight-lipped about how he managed to get the film made without getting caught.

“Let me keep my procedures and secret thing,” he said. “Maybe I want to use them for the next movie.”

There was much speculation about the film in the run-up to the Cannes festival, which ends Sunday. When the Cannes lineup was announced last month, Rasoulof’s entry was listed simply as “Anonymous.”

The friend, Abu Nusaybah, was arrested immediately after he gave a BBC Television interview Friday describing how Adebolajo may have become radicalized in Kenya and alleging that Britain’s security services tried to recruit him six months ago. Police said Nusaybah was wanted on suspicion of involvement in unspecified acts of terrorism.

Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, are suspected of killing soldier Lee Rigby by hacking his body with knives and a meat cleaver in front of dozens of passersby Wednesday in the southeast London district of Woolwich. The horrific scene was recorded on witnesses’ cellphones, and a video has emerged showing one of the two suspects making political statements and warning of more violence as the soldier lay on the ground.

Police shot both men as they arrived minutes after Rigby’s slaying. Both suspects remain under armed guard at two London hospitals.

The attack has sparked fears of anti-Muslim sentiments in Britain. Police on Saturday arrested three people on suspicion of posting racist comments on Twitter ahead of a march organized by the far-right group English Defence League in the northern city of Newcastle. Police said some 1,500 people took part in the march.

The group, which has clashed violently with police in the past, has used Rigby’s murder to criticize the British government for not paying enough attention to radical Islam in the country. About 350 people staged a counter-demonstration.

Faith Matters, a charity campaigning against extremism, said its helpline has received 162 calls since Rigby was killed from people reporting anti-Muslim incidents including attacks against mosques.

Questions abound over what could have led the two men to attack Rigby, a 25-year-old ceremonial military drummer and machine-gunner who had served in Afghanistan and was off duty when he was walking near his barracks. Nusaybah’s interview offered one possible narrative. He said Adebolajo’s behaviour changed after he allegedly suffered abuse at the hands of Kenyan security forces.

Nusaybah said Adebolajo became withdrawn after he was allegedly arrested and then abused both physically and sexually while in jail.

“Although that change wasn’t necessarily one that became overt, aggressive or anything like that, he became … less talkative. He wasn’t his bubbly self,” Nusaybah told the BBC.

He claimed that agents from Britain’s domestic spy agency, MI5, approached Adebolajo after he returned to Britain and initially asked him if he had met specific Muslim militants, then asked Adebolajo if he was willing to act as an informer.

“He was explicit in that he refused to work for them,” Nusaybah said.

The BBC said police arrested Nusaybah outside its studios Friday night immediately after recording the interview.

“This interviewee had important background information that sheds light on this horrific event,” the BBC said in a statement. “And when we asked him to appear and interviewed him, we were not aware he was wanted for questioning by the police.”

London police confirmed that a 31-year-old man was arrested Friday night on suspicion of “the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.” Police declined to identify Nusaybah by name or provide further detail.

It was not immediately possible to verify the information provided by Nusaybah, who said he had known Adebolajo for about a decade. MI5 does not publicly discuss its efforts to recruit informers.

It is not uncommon, however, for special services officers to occasionally visit communities to ask people if they know potential terror suspects or others under MI5 surveillance.

Potential informants go through a screening process to determine if they should be trusted, what their motivation might be and whether their information would be likely to be accurate.

Nusaybah said Adebolajo was converted to Islam around 2004. His account corroborates those provided by two Muslim hard-liners who said they also knew Adebolajo.

Anjem Choudary, a former leader of a banned British radical group called al-Muhajiroun, said Adebolajo was a Christian who converted to Islam around 2003. Choudary told The Associated Press that Adebolajo participated in several of the group’s London demonstrations before Britain outlawed the group in 2010.

Omar Bakri Muhammad, another former al-Muhajiroun leader and radical Muslim preacher, said Adebolajo is a Nigerian who was born and raised in Britain. He said that Adebolajo attended his London lectures in the early 2000s, but added that he had not stayed in touch with the suspect since then. Muhammad fled London and resettled in Lebanon in 2005 after suicide attacks on London’s public transit system killed 56 people, including four bombers.

“I don’t know what Michael did since 2004 or 2005,” Bakri told the AP. “Two years ago he stopped attending our open lectures and lessons as well as our activities.”

The University of Greenwich confirmed Saturday that records show Adebolajo was registered as a student there between 2003 and 2005. His academic progress was unsatisfactory and he did not complete his studies there, vice chancellor David Maguire said. The university did not have records for the second suspect, Adebowale.

University officials are investigating whether there was any evidence of extremism on its campus, Maguire added.

Police have not officially named the two suspects — officials in Britain usually wait to name suspects until charges have been filed. The AP has received confirmation of the identity of Adebowale from a British official speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to disclose the information.

Few details have emerged about Adebowale besides one reported brush with death as a teenager.

The Guardian reported Saturday that Adebowale was stabbed in 2008, when a man attacked him and two friends in a London apartment. One 18-year-old friend died and the attacker received a life sentence for murder, the newspaper said.

Both suspects had been known to Britain’s security services as part of previous terrorism investigations. Authorities said they have arrested three others, a man and two women, on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, but it is not yet clear whether the killing was part of any larger plot. The man remains in custody and the two women have been released without charge.

MI5 Director-General Andrew Parker is expected to deliver a preliminary report next week to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee detailing what the agency knew about both suspects and whether MI5 could have done anything to stop the attack.

The directors of Britain’s foreign spy agency, MI6, and Britain’s eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, also are expected to give reports on what intelligence they had on the two men.

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Associated Press writer Paisley Dodds in London and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.