One of Ours

Paris will block US plans to impose sanctions on Sudan's government, says French junior foreign minister Renaud Muselier.

The United Nations security council is debating a US-backed resolution which hopes to block travel and arms sales to the militia groups responsible for the massacres in Sudan's Darfur region. UN representatives describe the slaughter as "the world's worst humanitarian crisis."

Washington has threatened to extend the sanctions to Sudan's government if it does not work harder to bring an end to the violence. The Arab militia groups are said to be backed by Khartoum, with many black villagers - who are on the receiving end of the violence - claiming that their settlements are bombed by government planes before the militia ride in on horses to kill and destroy whatever is left.

Over a million refugees have fled the region.

Nevertheless, Khartoum's complicity in the slaughter does not seem to have unduly worried the French. Muselier says that in Paris' book, tens of thousands deaths and one million displaced people does not constitute ethnic cleansing:

"I firmly believe it is a civil war" he said, "and as they are little villages of 30, 40, 50, there is nothing easier than for a few armed horsemen to burn things down, to kill the men and drive out the women."

Muselier added that it would be better to "help the Sudanese get over their crisis so their country is pacified" rather than risk sending the government back to its old ways by imposing sanctions.

This is the diplomatic equivalent of putting trouble down to "high spirits."

France led opposition to US moves at the UN over Iraq. As was the case in Iraq, France also has significant oil interests in Sudan.