Paris, Jan 21: French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned on Friday that any foreign military intervention against Iran's nuclear programme would trigger "war and chaos" across the Middle East and beyond.
"France will do everything to avoid a military intervention," Sarkozy said before an audience of senior diplomats in Paris, calling instead for a "much stronger" sanctions regime to be imposed on Tehran.
"A military intervention would not solve the problem but would unleash war and chaos in the Middle East and perhaps the world," he warned.
France has been one of the loudest Western voices pushing for economic sanctions to force Iran to abandon its nuclear programme, which Paris fears could lead to the Islamic regime developing an atomic bomb.
But it remains opposed to calls from some hawks in the United States and Israel for air strikes against Iranian facilities.
Iran insists its nuclear fuel enrichment programme is designed to produce fuel for reactors in future civilian power stations and for medical isotopes.
Tehran has vowed to defeat any military intervention and has warned that it may attempt to block shipping lanes and choke off oil exports from the Gulf if sanctions target its own energy industry or banks.
Britain and the United States have tightened their economic sanctions while the European Union is to meet next week and is expected to approve new measures against Iranian oil exports and the financial sector.
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