Paris - France demanded yesterday that the United States not execute a Frenchman charged with plotting the September 11th attacks even if a US federal court finds Mr Zacarias Moussaoui guilty on terrorism charges.
Highlighting possible tensions between Washington and its European partners in the campaign against terrorism, the Justice Minister, Ms Marylise Lebranchu, said Paris would not accept the death penalty for Mr Moussaoui, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent.
"Of course, no person benefiting from French consular protection should be executed," she told RMC radio.
France, like virtually every European country, no longer has a death penalty, having scrapped the guillotine in 1981.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed that France would take steps to ensure Mr Massaoui was not executed if convicted.
"That stems from our general position on the death penalty," he told a regular news briefing.
A leading French human rights group urged the government to protect Mr Moussaoui from execution and give him legal aid.
"Today more than ever, France must confirm its commitment to stand against the death penalty," Mr Michel Taube, president of the group Together Against the Death Penalty, said in a statement.