British to heal rift with French

DIPLOMACY

Britain and France were yesterday seeking to reconcile their public differences over Bosnia after some sharp words about "rhetoric" and the 1930s.

There is concern among senior military officers that political in-fighting between London and Paris could threaten the co-operation built up in the field and put soldiers at risk.

The excellent relations cultivated by Douglas Hurd with the French Prime Minister, Alain Juppe, could also be in jeopardy if public discord persists. Some diplomats noted yesterday there was already irritation in Paris with the British government. The debacle in Bosnia came just as the British Cabinet decided last week to award a new helicopter contract to a US-led consortium and to reject a European option supported by France. It also coincided with fierce international criticism of French nuclear tests in the Pacific - from which Britain carefully refrained.

Yesterday the British and French chiefs of staff were meeting their American counterpart and on Friday John Major spoke at length by telephone with the French President, Jacques Chirac. It was Mr Chirac's choice of language at a press conference on Bastille Day that seems to have touched raw nerves in the Foreign Office. Mr Chirac said that making due allowance for proportion, it seemed to him that the times were like those of Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier, the British and French leaders who failed to confront Hitler until September 1939.

Mr Chirac said he was ready to commit French forces to recapture the fallen Muslim enclave of Srebrenica but he had received no positive response from France's partners.

The Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, then made pointed references to "rhetoric" and said Mr Chirac could order French troops to retake Srebrenica if he wished but the Anglo-French forces lacked heavy artillery and armour for such a task.

British officials were clearly concerned that rhetorical pressure from Paris could pitch British and French troops in the former Yugoslavia straight into the sort of conflict which the Cabinet has pledged to avoid. Despite Mr Chirac's vigorous language, they claimed not to detect any fundamental shift in French attitude.

"Our policy in the former Yugoslavia has been based on the same premises as the French for some time," a Foreign Office official said yesterday. London and Paris will now be seeking to clear the air before a meeting next Friday at which Mr Major wants to see Britain and France hold their own in discussion with the US, Russia and Germany.