Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to invite German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Paris on November 11 to commemorate Armistice Day, the daily Le Monde reported on its website, citing sources at the Elysee Palace. If Merkel accepts, she would become the first-ever German leader to commemorate the end of World War I, and Germany's defeat, in France.
In 1998, then president Jacques Chirac asked Gerhard Schroeder to come to Paris for the Armistice Day events, but the German chancellor controversially turned the invitation down.
According to the report, both Sarkozy and Merkel are to hold speeches at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, at the Arc de Triomphe on November 11.
Neither French nor German officials were prepared to comment on the report.
On November 9, Sarkozy will be in Berlin to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with Merkel and numerous other heads of state and government.
