France's top human rights official strongly criticised Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ahead of his arrival on an official visit today, saying France was not a "doormat" on which he could wipe off the blood of his crimes.
Secretary of State for Human Rights Rama Yade, a member of the centre-right government, said in a newspaper interview published on Monday that the timing of Gaddafi's visit was particularly bad as he was arriving on World Human Rights Day.
French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner
Foreign minister Bernard Kouchner defended Yade's comments ahead of the visit by Gaddafi, his first to France in 34 years as ties with Western countries who have long accused him of backing terrorism have warmed since Tripoli scrapped its weapons of mass destruction programme in 2003.
"I am resigned to hosting him. It was a necessity ... because being a human rights activist but currently foreign minister is a contradiction I encounter daily with many countries," Mr Kouchner said in a radio interview.
"France is not just a trade balance," Yade told the daily Le Parisien, adding that France should not only sign business deals with Gaddafi but also demand "guarantees" from him on human rights in his country during his five-day visit.
"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.
The visit would be indecent if it boiled down to signing contracts, said Yade, whose youth, gender and Senegalese origins have made her a symbol of the new generation of politicians President Nicolas Sarkozy says he wants to promote.
Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam said in a newspaper interview last week that Libya would buy more than 3 billion euros worth of Airbus planes plus a nuclear power station and was looking to acquire military hardware too.