JERUSALEM, Aug 23 (AFP) - Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom is to fly to France on Tuesday for talks on a growing spate of attacks on Europe's largest Jewish community, his ministry announced late Monday.
Shalom is to meet with French counterpart Michel Barnier and Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin, as well as Jewish community leaders, a spokeswoman said.
His visit will come two days after arsonists torched a Jewish centre in Paris and scrawled swastikas inside.
Unidentified vandals broke into the centre in an eastern district of the French capital Sunday and daubed anti-Semitic slogans such as: "Without Jews we would be happy," and: "The world would be pure if there no more Jews."
Statistics published by the French interior ministry show the number of attacks against both Jews and Muslims has soared in the first half of 2004, with 135 acts of physical violence against Jews and 95 against north Africans and other ethnic minorities.
The attacks prompted a controversial call from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for French Jews to emigrate to Israel to escape the violence.
France is home to Europe's biggest Jewish and Muslim communities, estimated at 650,000 and five million respectively, out of an overall population of 59 million, excluding overseas territories.
The ministry did not specify how long Shalom would stay in France.