Mexican, French presidents discuss environment, kidnapping case

Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy met in Spain Tuesday to discuss the environmental issue and the imprisonment of a French woman in Mexico for kidnapping.

According to a statement from Calderon's office, Sarkozy told Calderon that France is keen to contribute to the success of the 2010 UN Climate Change Conference scheduled for November in Cancun, a resort city on Mexico's Caribbean coast.

Sarkozy also stressed the importance for the international community to reach substantive agreements, the statement said.

Sarkozy further raised the case of Florence Cassez, reiterating France's request to have Cassez serve her 60-year sentence in France rather than in Mexico, under the terms of the Strasbourg Convention signed by the European Union, Mexico, the United States and others in 1983.

Calderon told Sarkozy that Mexico considers it essential that Cassez serve her whole term, and argued that substantial differences in the two nations' judicial systems indicate that Cassez is unlikely to serve out her term if she is held in France.

During Sarkozy's 2009 visit to Mexico, the two nations agreed to set up a bilateral commission to look into the matter and said that Cassez should exhaust the appeals procedures available in Mexico before resorting to any other methods.

The two leaders met during the Sixth European Union-Latin America and Caribbean Summit.

Source:Xinhua