French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie Thursday kicked off a four-day Middle East tour, her first since taking office last year, with stops in Israel, the Palestinian territories, Egypt and Jordan.
She succeeded Bernard Kouchner in November in the framework of a cabinet reshuffle by President Sarkozy.
Her trip is expected to focus heavily on ways to kick start stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, which ground to a halt shortly after they started last September over the issue of Israeli settlement construction.
Alliot-Marie, who landed shortly after midnight, was to meet with top Israeli officials on Thursday, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Defence Minister Ehud Barak. and opposition leader Tzipi Livni.
She will also meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad at the French consulate in east Jerusalem.
Peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have been on hold since September 26, when a 10-month freeze on construction in the West Bank expired.
One of Alliot-Marie’s central reasons for coming to Israel and the Palestinian Authority at this time, according to a statement issued by the French Embassy in Tel Aviv was to see how France and the European Union, in coordination with the US, could contribute to direct Israeli- Palestinian negotiations, which "are the only way to reach a sustainable solution to the crisis."
The statement said she would emphasize the need for both sides to refrain from "provocative actions."
Alliot-Marie was also expected to visit the southern city of Sderot, frequently targeted by rocket attacks from Gaza, and meet with the parents of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier with French citizenship who has been held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas since his kidnap in June 2006.
She will also visit Israel's Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem.
On Friday, she travel to Gaza in what will be the first time a French Foreign Minister has been able to visit the coastal enclave since September 2005.
Her trip comes in the wake of criticism back home from the opposition and some corners of the French media over her response to protests in Tunisia.
Three days before President Zin el Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia, as riots took place throughout the country, Alliot-Marie offered to share French police expertise in "settling security situations of this type."
She was asked about the matter on Tuesday at the French parliament’s foreign affairs committee, and was quoted as saying: “Let’s be honest: We were all – politicians, diplomats and researchers, journalists – surprised by the Jasmine Revolution.” She also said her proposal of cooperation had been “distorted” by critics.
France, like other Western governments, overlooked Ben Ali’s human rights record, focusing instead on his silencing of the Islamists inside Tunisia and on the country’s relatively strong economic record.
From Israel the French minister will travel to Egypt and then to Jordan.