President Nicolas Sarkozy held talks on the European Union Wednesday with far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen - the first time the nationalist firebrand, convicted of racism and anti-Semitism, has been invited to the presidential palace in at least 33 years.

Le Pen hailed the invitation as a "democratic gesture."

Le Pen's National Front party is on its knees after Sarkozy wooed away its voters in last month's presidential elections by borrowing far-right themes such as national identity.

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Le Pen, who shocked France with his second-place finish in the 2002 presidential race against Jacques Chirac, came in a poor fourth in this year's contest. His party fared so badly in this month's legislative elections that it risks losing up to 60 percent of its state subsidies.

Sarkozy "spoke to me about his European projects," Le Pen said of the half-hour meeting.

"I told him what he already knew, of our profound differences on this subject," Le Pen said, adding that they also had a "general exchange of views."

Sarkozy is preparing for an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, hoping to push through his idea of a "simplified treaty" to replace the draft EU constitution rejected in 2005 by French and Dutch voters.

Sarkozy had said in a June 6 interview with Le Figaro that he would meet with "all political formations" represented in the French and European parliaments. Le Pen is a lawmaker in the European Parliament.

Chirac and his Socialist predecessor Francois Mitterrand always refused to meet with Le Pen.

The National Front leader met twice with Alain Poher, who was president for two brief interludes in 1969 and 1974, according to National Front spokesman Alain Vizier, who could not provide exact dates.

However, at the time Le Pen's party did not hold political weight. It began its rise in European elections in 1984 and traditionally gleaned up to 15 percent of the vote in French elections thereafter, posing a problem to mainstream politicians.