Paris salutes Serbian opposition leaders

THE LEADERS of the Serbian opposition coalition Zajedno (Together) met the French Foreign Minister, Mr Herve de Charette, here yesterday. Mr de Charette extended the invitation to Mr Vuk Draskovic, Ms Vesna Pesic and Mr Zoran Djindjic at the beginning of the week, saying "the invitation equals recognition".

The meeting reaffirmed France's historic ties with Serbia, which go back to a pre-first World War alliance. "France is ready, as always, to help the Serbian people - a people who are friends of France," Mr de Charette said, praising the "maturity and seriousness of purpose" of pro-demo-racy demonstrators.

By taking a unilateral diplomatic initiative, France also tweaked the US at a time when Franco-American relations are strained by the dispute over NATO's southern command.

If President Slobodan Milosevic carries through with his law recognising last November's municipal election results "we will contact our European partners, so our support for the democratisation of Serbia will be not only a French demarche but a European demarche," Mr de Charette said.

The Serbian leaders said Mr Milosevic's announcement on Tuesday night was a positive development, but they were still wary and would continue demonstrations until all their demands are met. "As you know, Mr Milosevic suggested to the Serbian parliament to pass a law recognising the election results," Mr Draskovic said. "That's good. What is not good is that it took him 80 days after the election to do this. We must be very, very careful because we had very-bad experiences with Mr Milosevic in the past. A lot of times he promised one thing and did another."

By inviting the Serbian leaders the French government was preparing the way for future good relations in the event they win elections later this year.