The French 2008 presidency of the European Union was one of the costliest in history, with the government spending an average of 1 million euros (currently about 1.5 million dollars) a day, the online edition of the daily le Figaro reported Monday.
According to accounting by the government's revenue court, the total cost of President Nicolas Sarkozy's six-month leadership of the EU was 171 million euros, well above the average of 70 to 80 million euros spent by other EU members on their presidencies. The online daily MediaPart, which first reported the story, said that only Germany's presidency in 2007 was as costly as France's in EU history.