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French President Nicolas Sarkozy (R) with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Elysée Palace in Paris last Thursday.
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JERUSALEM-PARIS (EJP)--- French President Nicolas Sarkozy has told Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during a meeting last week at the Elysée palace in Paris, to remove Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and replace him with opposition leader Tzipi Livni, Israel's Channel 2 television reported Monday night.
According to the news report, Sarkozy told the Israeli leader that 'you need to get rid of this man. You need to remove him from this position.'
He reportedly urged Netanyahu to replace with Livni, who was Foreign Minister in the previous Israeli government but refused to join Netanyahu’s coalition because of differences over how to pursue the peace process with the Palestinians.
"I have always accepted Israeli Foreign Ministers, and I loved to have Tzipi Livni here at the Elysée, but with him (Lieberman) I can't," Sarkozy said at the meeting, according to the tv channel, punctuating his statement with a disparaging hand gesture.
Sarkozy said that with Livni, leader of the centrist Kadima party, and Defence Minister Ehud Barak, of the centre-left Labour Party, in the government, Netanyahu could "make history."
Netanyahu replied that Lieberman sounded different in private conversations and was a "pragmatic", and Sarkozy replied that "in private talks Jean-Marie Le Pen (head of the extreme-right in France) is also a nice person."
When Netanyahu protested the comparison, Sarkozy conceded that Lieberman and Le Pen were not the same.
A spokesman for Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was quoted as describing Sarkozy's remarks as "'the intervention of the president of a respected, democratic state in the affairs of another democratic state," which was "grave" and "intolerable."
"We expect that - regardless of political affiliation - all political bodies in Israel condemn this callous intervention of a foreign state in our internal affairs," the spokesman said.
Netanyahu's office said that it would not discuss the contents of private talks that the Israeli Prime Minister held with foreign leaders.
“Netanyahu greatly valued his Foreign Minister”, the Prime Minister’s office said.
Reports said Israel's ambassador to France, Daniel Shek, didn't report about the conversation between Sarkozy and Netanyahu to the foreign ministry in Jerusalem.
Ynet news reported Tuesday that the Prime Minister's Office instructed all Israeli officials who took part in the meeting not to disclose the details of the conversation, for fear that the details would be leaked.