President Anwar Sadat of Egypt may try to enlist France as a go-between in efforts to bring about Middle East peace talks, diplomatic circles here predicted today. They said a meeting in the near future between Sadat and President Georges Pompidou of France was a distinct possibility. Western and Arab diplomats here have noted with considerable interest Sadat’s announcement that Egypt has broken off all contacts with the United States over an interim Suez settlement. They also note that his recent visit to Moscow was apparently a disappointment to Sadat and that he may now seek another Western interlocutor to break the Mideast impasse.
France is considered to be the most likely candidate because of the central role it plays in Western Europe, its emphasis on the United Nations role in the Middle East and its inclination toward the Arab cause. The French Ambassador in Cairo, Francoise Puaux, will soon succeed Jacques De Beaumarchais as political director of the Foreign Office here. According to well informed diplomats, this shift will coincide with an intensification of Franco-Egyptian collaboration.
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