The families of abducted Israel Defense Forces asked French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Monday evening to demand a sign of life from the soldiers as a condition for the visit of Lebanese parliamentarians.

Representatives from various Lebanese factions are set to meet at the end of the month in Paris to discuss the future of their government.

Kouchner told the families that he could not heed their request, but promised to demand from the parliamentarians information about the soldiers.

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"For France, the release of the abducted soldiers is a must, and in every meeting or political interaction, we repeat this demand, and will continue to do so," Kouchner said.

The families of all three abducted soldiers met in Paris with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said Monday he would use all the power at his disposal to return the three servicemen home safely.

Sarkozy spoke in depth on the matter of Gilad Shalit who holds joint Israeli and French citizenship, saying he considers the IDF Corporal kidnapped by Hamas over a year ago to be a fully fledged French national.

"He promised us that he's doing all the efforts he can in this matter," Gilad Shalit's father, Noam Shalit, said in English after the meeting.

Addressing the issue of Regev and Goldwasser, Sarkozy said he considers Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization.

The French president said his estimation of Hezbollah has not changed despite his government's issuing of permission of members of the group to visit France for talks with rival Lebanese factions on the future of the Middle Eastern country.

He pledged to the families to raise the issue of the abducted soldiers with Lebanese representatives when they next met.

Italian senator says Italy missed opportunity to free IDF soldiers
Italy's intelligence agency was set to secure the release of the two Israel Defense Forces abducted by Hezbollah last year on Israel's northern border, but missed the opportunity at the last minute, according to an Italian senator.

Senator Sergio De Gregorio told the Italian newspaper "La Stampa" that Nicolo Pollari, who headed Italy's Military Intelligence and Security Service (SISMI) under former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, told him that SISMI was close to securing the release of IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

"The matter was almost completed, but didn't come through because the Italian government didn't act as it was supposed to," De Gregorio said in the interview.

He did not elaborate on how the Italians were planning on securing the release of the soldiers.

Hezbollah gunmen abducted Regev and Goldwasser in a cross-border raid that touched off the Second Lebanon War last July. There has been no sign of life from them since.

De Gregorio was quoted last year saying that Iran, which supplies extensive financial and military support to the Lebanese militant group, had said it would tell Hezbollah that Italy was the only mediator with whom it could hold talks regarding the abductees. The senator said then that he was told that Goldwasser and Regev were alive but their condition was "not great."

Premier Romano Prodi is currently on a three-day trip to Israel and the West Bank to discuss ways to promote Mideast peacemaking.

"I call on Hamas to release Gilad Shalit without further delay," Prodi said after meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in remarks translated from Italian. "He has been in captivity for too long."

Asked about Israeli media reports that Italy is helping to mediate the release of Regev and Goldwasser, Prodi said Rome "had made several requests for information on their whereabouts, condition and possible terms for freeing them but, we never received specific information that could secure their release." He did not elaborate.