France ratified Thursday the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) which Serbia signed with all EU members, Tanjug was told in the French Embassy in Belgrade.

The French National Assembly, the lower house of the bicameral parliament of France, adopted Thursday the draft law approving the SAA ratification, while the Senate did that on July 12.

The document needs to be signed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, which should happen very soon bearing in mind that both the president and the government have proposed the ratification of the SAA with Serbia.

France is the 23rd state that has ratified the SAA, the ratification procedure in the remaining four EU member states - Lithuania, the Netherlands, Belgium and Romania is under way. The first EU member state to ratify the SAA with Serbia was Spain in June 2010.