PARIS, Dec 14: France said it’s preparing for possible retaliatory measures from Turkey, as a result of the French government’s insistence that the European Union push back as far as possible the starting date of negotiations for Ankara’s eventual entry into the EU.

Turkey’s entry into the EU is to be discussed in December 2004, although Paris had hoped that opening talks would take place only in 2005.

Turkey has not hidden its conviction that the additional year it must now wait is largely the doing of France, whose Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, and former president Valery Giscard d’Estaing recently questioned the suitability of Turkey’s belonging to the EU.

A French diplomat said that Paris “was prepared” for a possible series of Turkish measures because, he noted, “we’ve been through this before.”

In fact, in 1997, Turkey had decided to take a series of retaliatory measures against Paris to express its displeasure over the vote by Parliament of a resolution condemning the 1915 genocide by Turkey of its Armenian population.

But the boycott of French products and potential services didn’t get very far, as the Turkish state soon realized that such French companies as Axa (the insurance group) and Renault (the automobile manufacturer) played not only an important role in the Turkish economy, but also they helped manage the Oyak fund that is in charge of investing the pension funds of Turkey’s all-powerful military forces.