French President Jacques Chirac proposed Wednesday to visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to create a French-Israeli foundation in order to reinforce ties in all fields between the two countries.

Sharon accepted this proposal and the two leaders hoped to move forward rapidly so that the foundation will allow unfreezing ties between the French and Israeli societies in all fields of cultural, economic and academic life, said Chirac's spokesman Jerome Bonnafont.

According to Chirac's office, the foundation will come into use in 2006.

The two leaders have charged ambassadors of the two countries to make concrete proposals, said the spokesman.

The "warm" talks lasting two hours and a half between the two leaders allowed some "deep exchanges of view over bilateral ties and Israeli-Palestinian relationship" ahead of Israeli pullout from Gaza scheduled for mid-August, said the spokesman.

French president said "the French want to develop relationship between Israel and France...We appreciate (Sharon's) gesture to come to Paris at the current situation," his spokesman said.

For his part, Sharon hoped that Israel, where lives an important French-speaking community, can join the international organization of the French speaking countries, the Francophonie, a request qualified by Chirac as a "legitimate hope".

More than a million out of 5,500,000 Israelis speak French and 28 percent of them are native speakers. The obvious objection to group Israel in the 56-member Francophonie is that Israel is not a French-speaking country and the French language does not have official status or even quasi-official status like English.

Source: Xinhua