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CAIRO: French President Jacques Chirac arrived in Cairo on Saturday for a two-day visit to throw France's weight behind Middle East peace efforts and to lobby for greater trade.

On his first Middle East tour since taking office last May, Chirac was expected to stress France's determination to play a more active role in the region during talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Mubarak and Chirac inspected a guard of honour at the Qobba presidential palace before laying a wreath at the tomb of late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who struck an historic peace accord with Israel in 1979.

The two leaders were due to hold private talks over dinner.

French officials have said Chirac, who arrived in Egypt after a two-day visit to Lebanon, would set out plans to pursue "a more ambitious policy towards the Arab and Mediterranean world" in a speech at Cairo University on Monday.

Presidential spokeswoman Catherine Colonna told the government newspaper Al-Ahram Chirac chose to make the keynote address in Egypt because of its "pivotal role in the region".

Chirac is returning to Egypt just three weeks after attending a summit meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, hastily arranged by Egypt and the United States to tackle the threat of militant violence to Middle East peace efforts.

The meeting followed a wave of suicide bombings by the Islamic movement Hamas which killed 58 people in Israel. In response Israel sealed off Palestinian self-rule areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

France's insistence that the follow-up meeting in Washington address the suffering caused by Israel's clampdown won praise from Arab states which view Paris and the rest of the European Union as a counterweight to the United States, seen as biased towards the Jewish state.

"Egypt appreciates the French role, which is based on friendship with the Arab world," Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa said on Friday.

Chirac will also push for more business with the Arab world's most populous state.

French officials said he would lobby Egypt to buy aircraft from the European consortium Airbus Industrie, as well as water treatment plants and power stations.

State-owned EgyptAir already plans to buy at least three Airbus planes to update its fleet.

Chirac will also aim to build on the strong personal ties which his predecessor Francois Mitterrand established with Mubarak. Mitterrand died earlier this year just days after returning from a holiday in the southern Egyptian resort of Aswan.-Reuter