Paris, June 15: French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie directly criticized her American counterpart in an interview published yesterday as someone who considers the United States the world's sole power. She also accused US industry of waging "economic war" and said Europeans must regroup to resist.
The Minister's blunt remarks recalled the bad blood that ran between Paris and Washington over France's leading role in standing against the US-led war in Iraq.
US Defense Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld's dig at "old Europe" epitomized the problem that both Paris and Washington have since worked to repair.
"The American Defense Secretary believes that the United States is the world's only military, economic and financial power," Alliot-Marie said in the interview published in the daily Le Monde.
"We do not share this vision," she said, adding that Rumsfeld's thinking does not seem to be in line with that of the US military and intelligence services.
"During the period of Franco-American tension, relations between our intelligence services remained perfect," she said.
The article was reread and "amended" by her in a not uncommon practice here, Le Monde noted.
Alliot-marie's comments were geared to the opening of the Paris air show, the largest display of aeronautical technology and might in the world, held every two years.
However, this year's show, which the French Defense Minister visited on Press Day yesterday, is a scaled back affair, with no US flyovers and US aircraft nearly cut in half to six. Bureau Report