Chirac has invited Sharon to Paris, Israel's envoy says
צילום: איי אף פי
Sharon invited to Paris after 4 years
France's Chirac invites Israel's Sharon to visit Paris in that would mark Israeli leader's first visit in almost four years and could heal a rift between the two nations, which was fueled by a Palestinian uprising
PARIS - French President Jacques Chirac has invited Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to visit Paris ahead of Israel's Gaza pullout, an Israeli official said, in what would mark his first visit since 2001 and help ease tensions between the two countries that ensued during four years of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Chirac visited Arafat on his deathbed at a French hospital days before he died.
Israeli-French tensions
The Israeli prime minister last visited France in July 2001, a few months after a four-year-old Palestinian uprising erupted. Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas declared a cease-fire in February aimed at ending the bloodshed.
Israel's ambassador in France, Nissim Zvili, said Chirac had sent Sharon a written invitation to visit him.
"In principle, Sharon is interested in visiting France," Zvili told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. "Now all that's left to do is to set a date for an official visit."
Meeting may occur before pullout
Diplomatic relations between Israel and Paris have grown warmer in recent months since the death in November of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, to whom Chirac had always been a close ally, but who Israel and the United States have always accused of fomenting violence, a charge he denied.
Chirac visited Arafat on his deathbed at a French hospital days before he died.
Israeli-French tensions
Tensions have brewed between Israel and France in recent years.
Chirac slammed Sharon in July 2004 for calling on French Jews to move to Israel due to what the Israeli leader said was a rise in anti-Semitism in France. Anti-Semitic attacks in France during 2004 were at their highest level in nearly 10 years, the French newspaper Liberation reported in March.
The French president said at the time that Sharon was not welcome in Paris unless he explained himself. An official in the Israeli embassy in Paris later said Sharon's meant to say that all Jews belong in Israel.
French Ambassador to Israel Gerard Araud shocked Israeli diplomats in February when said during a lecture that Israel enjoys a favorable French attitude compared to Arab countries and referred to Israelis as "arrogant." Araud also said in 2003 that the Jewish state was "paranoid" and called Sharon "a lout".
But one of the most controversial remarks by a French official regarding Israel occurred in 2001, when Daniel Bernard, France's former ambassador to Britain, was overheard at a dinner party speaking of "that shitty little country, Israel".
French officials have said Araud and Bernard's comments were taken out of context and that they were not anti-Semitic.
