FRANCE:Supporters of right-wing presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy have seized upon what they call a "serious error" by socialist candidate Ségolène Royal in Lebanon to question her competence in foreign policy matters.
In a meeting with Lebanese parliamentarians in Beirut on Friday night, Ms Royal corrected Ali Ammar, a deputy from the Shia Muslim Hizbullah party, when he referred to "the Zionist entity".
"I do not want to speak like you of an 'entity' concerning Israel, since the state of Israel exists and has the right to security," Ms Royal said.
But journalists, who had a different interpreter, heard Mr Ammar compare Israel to Nazi Germany. "The Naziism that spilled our blood and usurped our independence and sovereignty is not less bad than the Naziism that occupied France," he said.
Bernard Emié, the French ambassador to Lebanon who is close to French president Jacques Chirac, joined Ms Royal in saying their interpreter did not translate the references to Naziism. If he had, Ms Royal later insisted, she and the ambassador would have left the room immediately. The incident dominated the front pages of France's main newspapers yesterday.
François Fillon, Mr Sarkozy's political adviser, said Ms Royal should never have "accepted to talk with a member of Hizbullah, an organisation that advocates the destruction of Israel". The foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, said Ms Royal reminded him of a quote by Gen Charles de Gaulle: "I went towards the complicated East with simple ideas." In August, Mr Douste-Blazy praised the "stabilising role" of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Lebanon.
Roger Cukierman, the head of the main French Jewish group, CRIF, said no one should associate with Hizbullah.
Mr Sarkozy, whose maternal grandfather was a Jew from Salonica, maintains close relations with the CRIF. At the end of last month, his junior minister, Christian Estrosi, said: "Sarkozy is the natural candidate for Jewish voters."
Ironically, the nominally left-wing Ms Royal appears to be the natural foreign policy heir to right-wing Mr Chirac. Mr Sarkozy has made it clear he will end France's Gaullist "Arab policy" if he is elected. In Beirut, Ms Royal said she wanted "very strong continuity" in French foreign policy.
Ms Royal appears to have been cowed by the criticism back in Paris. She initially implied she might meet "democratically elected" representatives of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
But after her meeting with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday, her campaign director said she would do so only if Hamas recognised the state of Israel and joined in a national unity government.