PARIS, Feb 8: In the second attack by a French leader on American foreign policy in 48 hours, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin on Friday called on the US government not to yield “to the strong temptation of unilateralism”.

Just two days after his foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine, accused the United States of taking a simplistic and unilateral approach to global affairs, Jospin urged Washington to re-commit itself to “a multilateral approach” with the international community.

Speaking at a European Union conference on money-laundering in Paris, Jospin also asked the administration of President George W. Bush to look beyond the war against terrorism.

“We cannot reduce the world’s problems to the single dimension of the fight against terrorism,” Jospin said, “or count solely on military superiority to resolve them.”

While declaring that the common struggle with the United States against terrorism “will be pursued with determination”, Jospin nevertheless noted that “this in no way signifies that we should not lucidly consider what lessons to draw from the events of September 11”.

Citing such issues as disarmament negotiations, agreements on the environment and regulating globalization, the French prime minister called for “all forms of co-operation that enable the international community to tackle the basic problems together”.

No country, Jospin cautioned, “can resolve them on its own”.

Referring to Vedrine’s comments, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday that suggestions in what he called “intellectual circles” that the United States had not consulted with its allies “could not be further from the truth”.

He also declared that the US government would not “shrink from doing that which is right, which is in our interest, even if some of our friends disagree with us”.

However, the comments by Jospin and Vedrine suggest that, less than three months before French presidential elections, the prime minister and his government have decided to use American policy as a campaign issue.

Jospin’s likely opponent for the presidency, President Jacques Chirac, has been highly supportive of the American approach to fighting terrorism and muted in his criticism of US policy in the Mideast, which Vedrine slammed on Wednesday.—dpa