PARIS, Jan 25: French President Jacques Chirac has decided to personally involve himself in bringing about peace in the Middle East, and to that end has publicly received two of the major actors in the process.

Although Mr Chirac is known to have met privately in recent weeks with several high-level officials of both Palestine and Israel — among them Chairman Yasser Arafat, a close personal friend who keeps in touch with the French head of state on a weekly basis — the important change is that he’s now publicly declared his intention of personally playing a role in bringing about peace in the region, even if that means placing his chances of re-election in jeopardy.

Mr Chirac is to announce in early March his intention of seeking re-election, in a tight electoral battle which will pit him against sitting Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, the candidate of the Socialist Party who has not hidden his desire, if elected President, to reposition France’s traditional pro-Arab foreign policy towards a stronger pro-Israeli stance.

Still, Mr Jospin’s advisers do underline that he is in no way an unconditional supporter of Ariel Sharon, who, last summer, after having been received by Mr Jospin in Paris, declared that the French prime minister was “a friend of Israel,” although Mr Chirac, who has remained generally faithful to a strong pro-Arab Gaulist political line, was described simply as “not an enemy.”

On Thursday, the French president had long conversations with Ahmed Qorei [Abou Ala], president of the Palestinian National Assembly, and his Israeli counterpart Avraham Burg, president of the Knesset, and this apparently against the wishes of his advisers who would have preferred that the French president not involve himself so openly in peace efforts, whose most recent manifestation has been an international colloquium on peace in the Middle East held this week at the French National Assembly in Paris.

After the two individual meetings, Mr Chirac received the two men for lunch, and publicly encouraged Mr Burg to go through with his intention of speaking before the Palestinian legislative assembly at Ramallah. This in spite of the wishes of PM Sharon who let it be known to Mr Burg that such a visit, which would be made at the invitation of Mr Qorei, would result in disciplinary proceedings against himself.

Speaking before the press after the meeting on Thursday with the two leaders, Mr Chirac let it be known that as a result of his conversations with Messrs Qorei and Burg, he’d felt encouraged as to the future of the peace process, and that he’d congratulated the two men, “for having taken initiatives that might not necessarily seem effective, but had to be taken, initiatives of peace, and wisdom, initiatives that are profoundly human.”

Having spoken with each man, both of whom, he noted, had shown much courage in choosing to immerse themselves in the process towards peace, Mr Chirac noted that as a result he “now felt a small flame that each of us must allow to burn, as much as he can, for it’s capable of lighting the way on the somewhat darkened road to peace.”

In replying to Mr Chirac, and making reference to his “dear friend Mr Abou Ala,” Mr Burg let it be known that in spite of Mr Sharon’s warnings about going to Ramallah to address the Palestinian deputies, he would be going and that “the best would be to go as early as possible.”

He also thanked Mr Chirac for the role he’d played in attempting to start up again the peace process, for “having made possible this reunion between two ancient peoples, two peoples known for their wisdom, but two peoples who presently are engaged in an impasse.”