France's defense minister took a double swipe at the US on Saturday, accusing her counterpart Donald Rumsfeld of arrogance and US industry of waging "economic war" on Europe.
Michele Alliot-Marie's remarks, in a newspaper interview, were the bluntest criticism of Washington by a French official since presidents Jacques Chirac and George W. Bush skirted around their differences on Iraq at a summit two weeks ago.
"The American defense secretary [Rumsfeld] believes the United States is the only military, economic and financial power in the world. We do not share this vision," Alliot-Marie told Le Monde newspaper in an interview published on Saturday.
In Washington, the Pentagon rebuffed her remarks.
"The French minister is entitled to her own opinion. However her opinion does not accurately characterize the policy or position of the secretary of defense or the position of the US government," Defense Department spokesman Jim Turner said.
France's suggestion of superpower arrogance comes days after Rumsfeld revisited the scene of recent bickering over French opposition to the Iraq war by distinguishing between "old" and "new" Europe -- language which infuriated Paris in January.
Back then, Rumsfeld had dismissed France and Germany as "old Europe" in contrast to a "new Europe" of mostly eastern European countries more supportive of Washington. He repeated the controversial barb in Germany on Wednesday.
Alliot-Marie said military and intelligence co-operation between Paris and Washington had been unaffected by the split over Iraq. The Pentagon, however, said last month France would not be invited to a major military exercise in Nevada next year.
The fallout from the Iraq row was on stark display on Saturday as top US military and aerospace figures boycotted the opening of the Paris Air Show -- a prestigious event held every two years to the roar of American flypasts.
This time, the Pentagon banned the traditional aerial displays by its military pilots and scaled down its presence at the Le Bourget show in what is widely seen as a deliberate snub.
In her interview, timed to coincide with the world's largest air show, Alliot-Marie urged European firms to stand together to resist what she called an American "economic war."
"American industrialists are pursuing a logic of economic war," she said in the interview, which =Le Monde daily said had been read and cleared by her office before publication.
European and American planemakers traditionally battle for airline orders at the Le Bourget air show outside Paris, but top executives from firms like Boeing and Lockheed Martin have all decided not to attend this year.
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