Hollande to attend funeral of Shimon Peres

French President Francois Hollande will attend the funeral of former Israeli president Shimon Peres. His predecessor and presidential hopeful in 2017, Nicolas Sarkozy, will also attend.

Former Israeli President Shimon Peres delivers a statement to the media as he is discharged from a hospital near Tel Aviv, January 19, 2016. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

In addition to President Hollande, President Barak Obama and Prince Charles are expected to attend along with German President Joachim Gauck.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Australian Governor-General Peter Cosgrove, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, and Togo President Faure Gnassingbé will also attend.

Speaking on Wednesday morning, President Hollande described Peres as “an ardent defender of peace

"Shimon Peres now belongs to history, which was his companion during his long life,” Hollande said.

"With the death of Shimon Peres, Israel has lost one of its most illustrious statesmen, and peace one of its most ardent defenders."

Peres, former president, former prime minister, former defense minister, former foreign minister, former minister of eight other ministries, the last surviving member of Israel’s founding fathers, and winner of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize died early Wednesday after suffering a stroke two weeks ago. He was 93.

His body will lie in state at the Knesset, Israel's parliament, on Thursday to allow the public to pay final respects, Israeli officials have confirmed. His funeral will take place the next day at Mount Herzl, the country's national cemetery in Jerusalem.

While Peres's role in the 1993 Oslo Accords helped cement his reputation as a man of peace, his international renown was not matched by political popularity back home, where he repeatedly faced defeat at the polls.

His three terms at the helm of the Labour Party (1977-1992, 1995-1997, 2003-2005) were marked by a series of poor electoral showings, which included defeats to the right-wing Likud Party of Menachem Begin and, later, Benjamin Netanyahu

. It was only in the twilight of his career, when he became the world’s oldest head of state, that Peres finally acquired the popularity that had eluded him through most of his career,