Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said on Monday France did not want to block troubled global trade talks but sought to introduce some "common sense". Villepin, speaking during a visit to the French farm show, also said agriculture should not be used as a bargaining chip at the centre of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations.
"It's not a question of France blocking the negotiations but bringing a little common sense to them," he said. "It's not the job of agriculture to be the adjustable factor."
Ministers from major trade powers have been trying to push forward talks for a long-delayed deal to boost global commerce. Talks were resumed in January after a six-month suspension triggered by deep differences, mostly over agricultural trade.
European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, the target of French criticism, his US counterpart Susan Schwab, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and India's Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath held a series of bilateral meetings in London and Geneva beginning on Saturday.
All four were in Geneva on Monday for individual meetings with World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief Pascal Lamy and for further bilateral talks. "We have had constructive conversations over the past two days," Schwab's spokesman Sean Spicer told journalists. "We have a way to go but things are moving forward," he added without giving any detail.
French President Jacques Chirac, the champion of his country's farmers, criticised Mandelson on Saturday for offering too many concessions and for having a "mania" to get a deal. Asked to comment, Mandelson repeated his oft stated line that the European Union was ready to help clinch a free trade deal but that major WTO members all had to play their part.
"Europe has a responsibility to lead. It is in Europe's interest for these talks to end successfully. But they will not end at all unless others start matching what we are prepared to do," he said. Agriculture, where the United States is under pressure to concede bigger subsidy cuts and the Europeans to agree sharper tariff cuts, has long been the main stumbling block.
But developing countries must come up with better offers to open up their markets to industrial goods and services. Mandelson can count on the support of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who have strongly backed the negotiations.
Negotiators say a deal needs to be done in 2007 or risk possibly several years of further delay or collapse, undermining confidence in the global trading system. (Additional reporting by Richard Waddington in Geneva.