Last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy compared Lieberman to Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the far right wing party in France, and called upon Netanyahu to dismiss him from office and make a coalition with Tzippi Livni instead.
Israel Radio News reports:
In the meeting at the Elysee Palace last week, Sarkozy told Netanyahu that he should dismiss Lieberman and replace him with Tzippi Livni. Lieberman's spokesman said last night that if the report was accurate, this was very grave and was an act of crude meddling by France in Israel's domestic affairs.
Itamar Eichner in Yedioth Ahronoth commented:
Relations between Israel and France have become exceedingly tense of late. The reason for this development is the leaked information from the conversation that French President Nicolas Sarkozy held with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu...
The French president felt sufficiently at ease in that forum to discuss Israeli politics with Netanyahu and to criticize Lieberman severely.
"I've always received Israeli foreign ministers. I met with Tzippi Livni in the Elysee Palace, but with that one (Lieberman) I simply can't meet. I'm telling you, you need to get rid of that man. Get him out of the government and bring in Livni. With her and with Barak you can make history."
Netanyahu came to his foreign minister's defense and said: "You don't need to exaggerate. Lieberman is a very nice person, and in private conversations he speaks differently." Sarkozy wasn't persuaded and said: "In private conversations Jean-Marie Le Pen is also a nice person."
At a different stage of the conversation, Sarkozy also spoke about the possibility that Livni might join the coalition government. "I expect that she'll show responsibility and join the government. I told her that I was disappointed when she didn't do that, and that I thought she'd made a
mistake."Despite Sarkozy's comment, Barak Ravid in Haaretz reports that Netanyahu still has complete faith in Lieberman...
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