PARIS, July 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – French President Jacques Chirac reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon he is unwelcome in France, in the latest escalation of a diplomatic row between the two countries sparked by Sharon’s call on French Jews to leave France immediately.

A spokeswoman for Chirac said Monday, July 19, that a long-standing invitation for Sharon to visit France is now on hold until the Israeli leader explains remarks that have outraged politicians and Jewish groups in France.

"After some weeks of contacts concerning such a visit it turns out that it is impossible ... and you are not welcome following your comments," Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Chirac as saying, citing an Israeli television’s report.

Sharon urged Sunday, July 17, all French Jews to move immediately to Israel in order to escape what he called the "spread of the wildest anti-Semitism."

The remarks triggered outrage in the European country and French authorities demanded an Israeli explanation.

The Elysee Palace said France "has let it be known that from today an eventual visit by the Israeli prime minister to Paris, for which no date had been set, would not be considered until such an explanation is forthcoming."

The French President's office said the message had been "verbally delivered by diplomatic means."

An Israeli Foreign Ministry government spokesman earlier refused to comment on what he called "confidential messages."

Sharon had told a meeting of American Jewish groups in occupied Jerusalem that while he regularly called on Jewish communities around the world to immigrate to Israel, in France "it is a must... they have to move immediately" because of the hostility towards them from the country's five million Muslims.

French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, on a visit to Tunis, described the comments as "intolerable."

"Such comments are unacceptable and intolerable because they hit at the founding principles of the (French) republic," he told reporters.

The top diplomat pledged the French government would "fight every day if necessary and without compromise against all forms of anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia."

French politicians, media and religious leaders also reacted with indignation.

Jean-Louis Debre of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) said Sharon had "missed a good opportunity to shut his mouth."

Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner told a French radio station that Sharon had been "misunderstood" and that all he meant was that the place of all Jews was in Israel.

"I think that they are over-reacting," Israeli Interior Minister Avraham Poraz told Reuters.

"As you know, Israel is a Zionist state. And we always advocate Jews to migrate to Israel. So nothing new about that."

Reuven Rivlin, speaker of the Israeli parliament, regretted that "the French government have declared the prime minister of Israel as 'persona non grata'...The prime minister did not blame France for what is happening to the Jewish people."

A spokesman for Sharon tried to ease tension by underlining that the prime minister had praised France for its "strong stance" against anti-Semitism while blaming anti-Semitism in the European country on "a large Muslim populace who are hostile to Israel."

"France is not Germany of the 1930s," said Julien Dray, spokesman for the opposition Socialist Party, referring to the alleged Nazi persecution of Jews.

"The Jewish community is going through real anxiety about the future of its children. It knows that the political class is doing all it can to fight against this anti-Semitism.

"Some Jews are indeed asking questions about leaving. That is true. But in order to leave one must be of the opinion that the situation is out of control. And that is not the case," he said.

France is home to Europe's biggest Jewish and Muslim communities, 600,000 Jews and five million respectively.

It has been troubled by attacks on Jewish people and property in recent years, some of it blamed on tensions stoked by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Several mosques in France have also come under a string of racist attacks and arsons.

Mosques and Muslim graves in two cemeteries have been defaced with swastikas and Neo-Nazi slogans last month, while gunshots were fired at a mosque in northern France.