Barnier's comments came during a meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and other top officials who arrived here late Monday evening to visit their leader Yasser Arafat, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman told a press conference.

Barnier "paid homage to Palestinian officials for their activities in the Palestinian territories" and for their "unity and spirit of responsibility," the spokesman said.

Qurei, together with Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath, acting Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Mahmoud Abbas and Parliament Speaker Rawhi Fattuh had an hour-long meeting with Barnier before seeing Arafat at the Percy military hospital near Paris where Arafat has been hospitalized since Oct. 29 to diagnose his blood disorder.

Barnier expressed France's solidarity with the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people in their difficulties, the spokesman said.

The French foreign minister said France is more than ever committed to the resumption of negotiations under the "roadmap" peace plan.

Earlier Tuesday, a spokesman from the Percy military hospital declared that Arafat's condition has worsened overnight and that he is in a deeper coma.