President Nicolas Sarkozy defended a visit by Muammar Gaddafi yesterday, just hours after his top human rights official said France was not a "doormat" on which the Libyan leader could wipe off the blood of his crimes.
Secretary of State for Human Rights Rama Yade, a junior member of the centre-right government, had criticised Colonel Gaddafi's arrival on World Human Rights Day, saying France should demand guarantees on human rights when concluding trade deals.
Mr Sarkozy denied he had betrayed France's human rights heritage by inviting Colonel Gaddafi, and said securing lucrative contracts for French firms would not prevent him championing human rights. "I am also here to fight at the side of French businesses and factories so that we have the contracts and orders that the others were so happy to have in our stead, without in any way renouncing my convictions on human rights," Mr Sarkozy said.
He expected to sign contracts worth around €10 billion, including a seawater desalination plant driven by nuclear power, arms cooperation and other deals, Mr Sarkozy told reporters after briefly receiving Colonel Gaddafi at his Elysee palace.
Colonel Gaddafi's son said in an interview at the weekend that Libya would buy over €3 billion worth of Airbus planes and was negotiating the possible purchase of Dassault Aviation-built Rafale fighter jets and of a nuclear reactor made by Areva.
Business deals announced during state visit do not always lead to actual new contracts. Industry sources said yesterday it was not clear how much concrete new business was on the table.
Colonel Gaddafi, who was to meet Mr Sarkozy again for dinner later, is set to try to use his visit to improve his credentials as a statesman given his improved ties with the West in recent years. Few details of his schedule have been announced, but he is due to meet Mr Sarkozy on at least one other occasion during his five-day stay and will entertain in his Bedouin Arab tent pitched in the garden of the presidential guesthouse.
But his visit has sparked controversy in France.
"France is not just a trade balance," Ms Yade told the daily Le Parisien, adding that France should not only sign business deals with Colonel Gaddafi but also demand "guarantees" from him on human rights in his country.
"Colonel Gaddafi must understand that our country is not a doormat on which a leader, terrorist or not, can come and wipe the blood of his crimes off his feet. France should not receive this kiss of death," she said.
Mr Sarkozy defended Ms Yade's right to speak out, saying : "She is secretary of state for human rights and it's perfectly normal that she has a conviction on this issue which, moreover, I share, and I reminded the Libyan president of that."
Mr Sarkozy made a point of inviting Colonel Gaddafi after Libya in July released six foreign medics accused of infecting children with HIV and who had been detained for years.
Colonel Gaddafi has rarely been invited to Western capitals. But ties with Tripoli have improved since it scrapped its weapons of mass destruction programme in 2003 and agreed compensation for families of victims of bombings of US and French airliners.
An IFOP poll for Paris Match magazine found that 61 per cent of respondents did not approve of Colonel Gaddafi's visit.