photo AFP
Israel’s president Shimon Peres has begun a state visit to France. He met at the Elysée palace with his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy, who assured him that the security of Israel was not in question and France will always be at Israel's side. The Israeli president called France "a true friend of the Jewish people, since the Holocaust, and an honest and true friend of the state of Israel since its creation."
At talks between the two leaders, Sarkozy reportedly told Peres he was convinced that "the best guarantee for Israel's security is the creation of a modern Palestinian state, democratic and viable before the end of 2008." The French president criticized Israel’s decision to expand Jewish settlements in eastern Jerusalem. Peres told reporters after his meeting that the two leaders agreed that Iran’s nuclear program represented the "greatest danger" to world security. As a gift, Peres dedicated an olive grove at a Holon agronomic school, near Tel Aviv, to the French leader. The school was founded in the 19th century by former French justice minister Adolphe Crémieux.
Shimon Peres and French Jewish community leaders later attended a memorial ceremony at Paris’ Victoire Synagogue commemorating the yeshiva students killed in Jerusalem last week. In the evening, Peres was honored by Sarkozy at a banquet at the Elysée palace.
On Tuesday, the Israeli president will meet with French prime minister Francois Fillon and parliament leaders before travelling to Lyon on Wednesday to visit a center that traces the history of the French Résistance and Jewish deportations during World War II. On Thursday, he will help inaugurate the Paris book fair, which runs until 19 March and will highlight Hebrew literature on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel. Several Muslim countries and writers' associations have said they would boycott the fair after organizers announced that 39 Israeli writers were invited to mark the occasion.
