BERLIN, June 7: Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has called French Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy "extremely nationalistic" for opposing a German partner for engineering group Alstom, a newspaper reported on Monday.
Reflecting German disquiet over French industrial policy, the Financial Times Deutschland quoted unnamed sources as saying Schroeder was annoyed at Sarkozy's opposition to German industrial group Siemens AG taking a stake in its French rival.
It said Schroeder had told people close to him Sarkozy's stance on Alstom even threatened Franco-German cooperation. Schroeder's spokesman Bela Anda declined to comment but noted the chancellor had made clear in a weekend interview his displeasure over Sarkozy's handling of a state bail-out of debt-laden Alstom, whose products include ships and trains.
A Berlin official suggested Sarkozy's open ambition to succeed Jacques Chirac as president in 2007 was the problem. "You cannot blame that on Chirac, it's Sarkozy," the official, who declined to be named, told Reuters. "Sarkozy wants to position himself against Chirac and is playing the national card without any restraint."
German government officials were also irritated by the French government's strong support earlier this year for a French takeover of Franco-German chemicals group Aventis.
The rifts over industrial policy contrast with a strong alliance in foreign policy, underscored at the weekend when Schroeder became the first German leader to join an anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, at Chirac's invitation.
Sarkozy strongly backed a state bailout of Alstom that will shield the group from a break-up or foreign takeover and insisted Paris would ensure the survival of the engineering group.
The affair, which came only weeks after Paris threw its weight behind a takeover of Franco-German drugs group Aventis by French rival Sanofi-Synthelabo, has already triggered criticism in Germany.
"That's a case of interventionism, the likes of which I've not seen for a long time," Economy Minister Wolfgang Clement said last month. "If this tendency continues, we will have to take consequences."
During the Aventis take over talks, Schroeder said he supported cross-border mergers of European companies and that he and Chirac had agreed to remain neutral in the Aventis battle.
Industrial policy may come up when Chirac and Schroeder hold one of their regular Franco-German meetings on June 14 in the western German town of Aachen. Clement and Sarkozy will not take part in that and a date for a meeting devoted to industry policy has not been set.
The European Union's former Competition Commissioner Karel van Miert accused both France and Germany of being too prone to intervene in the market, telling Tagesspiegel newspaper: "Purely political agreements don't work." -Reuters