Freed Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit meets Nicolas Sarkozy But he made an unusual public appearance Wednesday, meeting with Mr Sarkozy in his presidential palace in Paris. Mr Shalit did not speak to reporters afterward, but left the palace with a smile, bundled against a winter cold snap. His parents were also at the meeting. Mr Sarkozy praised the young Israeli for his "exemplary courage" and his parents for "their determination and their dignity in the face of the ordeal and the anguish," according to a statement from the president's office. At an annual dinner later held by the French-Jewish community, Mr Sarkozy castigated the Hamas captors. "Shame ... on those who did that," he said, adding that "no idea, no ideology, no situation can justify what was done to Gilad Shalit." Hamas-allied militants captured Mr Shalit in a 2006 cross-border raid, and his plight captured Israel's attention for years. Mr Sarkozy praised Israel for its own dogged efforts to return one of its sons, calling it a mark of Israel's democracy "because in a democracy we attach importance to one life" and "every family in Israel knows he can have a Gilad Shalit."