France’s next president and ministers must understand the importance of relations with Israel, Israel’s ambassador to France told JTA.
“It is important to make sure that the next president, whoever he or she will be, the new foreign minister and the top French bureaucracy will continue to consider the improvement of relations between our two countries on all levels as a French interest, as it is today,” Daniel Shek said Monday.
On Sunday, right-wing candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist candidate Segolene Royal advanced from the first round of French presidential elections to a May 6 runoff. The Jewish community favors Sarkozy, of the incumbent party, as pro-Israel and aware of security issues, while Royal drew fire for meeting with Hezbollah lawmakers and remaining silent while they heaped invective on Israel during a Mideast tour in December.
Shek said he and his colleagues will have to act fast. “We’ll have a new president, a new Parliament, a new government in this country, and obviously we’ll have to move quickly to establish working relations and to ensure that Israeli political leadership gets to know the new top leadership in France,” he said.
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