President Jacques Chirac pressed French demands for a genuine return of sovereignty to Iraqis today, citing what he called the wave of resentment felt by its population against the US-led occupation.
Mr Chirac made the call at an event in Paris with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Without referring explicitly to the scandal over abuse by US soldiers of Iraqi prisoners, he warned of the risk of a backlash by any people which had been humiliated.
"I think that today it is clear that a large majority of Iraqis resent the peacekeeping forces which they regard as an occupying force," he told an audience of British and French students at an event to mark the birth of the European Union.
"That is why it is very urgent to transfer, without any ambiguity, true sovereignty and powers to an Iraqi authority recognised as such by the Iraqi people," said Mr Chirac, who led international opposition to the war in Iraq.
The United States will keep some 135,000 troops in Iraq after June 30th, when Washington starts handing sovereignty to a US-approved authority.
In a comment on world tensions later on, he added: "Every time you humiliate people in one way or another, you create the reflexes and behaviour of aggression."