PARIS - Alain Juppe will fly to Egypt for his first official trip as France's new foreign minister, as Paris sets out to regain influence in the Arab world and turn the page on a string of diplomatic failures. Juppe, a veteran politician appointed to the post in a cabinet reshuffle, will travel to Cairo on Saturday on an overnight visit to meet the head of Egypt's new military leaders and Amr Moussa, Secretary General of the Arab League. The choice of Egypt for his first trip underscores France's eagerness to make its voice heard in the Middle East after the government was slow to recognise and react to the scale of political revolts in Tunisia and Egypt in the past few weeks. "With Egypt undergoing a historic upheaval, this visit will be a chance for France to show its support for the political transition and its willingness to accompany it in this direction," the foreign ministry said in a statement. "It marks ... France's engagement at the side of Arab peoples fighting for their freedom," it added. It was unclear what specifically he planned to discuss during the visit. Juppe's trip follows a series of blunders over Tunisia by his predecessor, Michele Alliot-Marie, and complaints by French diplomats that their country's foreign policy has lost its way. Juppe, who was foreign minister and prime minister in the 1990s, has gone to lengths to make France look more in touch with events in Libya. He met his British counterpart William Hague this week to discuss the crisis in Libya and sent in tents and emergency supplies for displaced people there and military planes to evacuate fleeing Egyptian workers on the border. "I will be in Cairo on Sunday to show our solidarity with all the people of the region," Juppe said during parliamentary questions this week. President Nicolas Sarkozy and Juppe have both said that in light of the uprisings in North Africa they plan to resurrect a union of Mediterranean countries that was launched by Sarkozy early in his term but then fell by the wayside. Alliot-Marie quit last weekend in a storm of criticism over a private trip she took to Tunisia at the height of deadly street protests there. Last month a group of diplomats penned an anonymous letter blaming Sarkozy for a loss of influence in foreign policy.
