"The greatest determination in the face of terrorism, yes, but always while respecting the rule of law."

The U.S. military is holding 460 foreigners at the Guantanamo prison, many of whom were captured in Afghanistan in the U.S.-led war to oust the Taliban and al Qaeda after the September 11 attacks. Nearly all are being held without charge.

President Bush acknowledged on Wednesday that the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, where three detainees committed suicide last weekend, has damaged the U.S. image abroad and said it should be shut down.

However, Bush added a plan for relocating the prisoners was needed first and said he also was awaiting a Supreme Court decision about the forum for handling detainee cases.

"We are in favor of effectively applying the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It contains the promise of the nuclear powers disarming, and we should press them to do that," he said.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is a 1970 global pact against the spread of atomic weapons which is policed by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.

Germany, a non-nuclear power, and the five permanent U.N. Security Council members have offered Tehran a package under which Iran would get trade and technology benefits if it halts uranium enrichment work.

"So far we have not had a clear sign, or a real reaction," Steinmeier said of the offer made to Iran. "What is positive, however, is that we are apparently for the first time seeing Iran in a state of reflection."

Steinmeier added that he hoped Iran's leadership would "find the way through the open door."

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday the United States had heard some positive statements from Tehran over the offer.

Iran says its nuclear program is for power generation. The United States says it is a front for building nuclear arms.

In recent months two rival pro-independence groups have issued competing statements calling for a resumption of "armed struggle" against French rule of the Mediterranean island.

Corsica has been prey to three decades of unrest which targets symbols of French authority, mostly through night-time bomb attacks against empty buildings.

The all-important tourist trade on the island has been mostly unaffected, although such blasts frequently destroy vacation homes belonging to non-Corsicans.

He suggested that no other leader from existing parties had the "capacity to bring together" all of France's disparate, and often quarrelsome, far-left factions.

He also said likely candidate Ségolène Royal, who has not officially decided to run, hailed from the "Socialists' right-wing and has left it wide open for an anti-liberal candidate from the PS."

Socialists gave a frosty response to Bové's presidential aspirations. Party leader François Hollande, who is also Royal's long-term companion, chided that the French extreme left was "no longer the most revolutionary, perhaps, but definitely the most election-obsessed".

Rivals to Bové's far-left bid were equally unwelcoming, with the Communist Party reminding him "there is no man of the hour".

Bove has become an anti-globalization cult figure, staging media-savvy stunts which have included destroying genetically modified crops, vandalizing a McDonald's and offering himself as a human shield in the Palestinian territories.

The self-declared "anarcho-syndicalist", a sheep farmer, also founded the Conféderation Paysanne, a radical movement focused on defending small farmers' rights.

The government revealed a plan in February for GDF to be absorbed, and therefore privatised, by Suez after it emerged that the Italian energy goup Enel was poised to make a hostile bid for Suez.

The Suez-GDF deal, which would create the fourth-biggest energy company in the world, was widely seen as a way of making Suez too big for Enel to swallow, although Suez and GDF said they had been working on the plan for some time.

But deputies from de Villepin's governing UMP party have joined Socialists and others who are hostile to the plan, saying they want to protect consumers from price rises that would likely follow a privatisation of GDF.

A source close to the government said Friday that "it was useless to try and push through" a deal.

Villepin's government has suffered several major setbacks in the past six months, and the next French presidential election is less than a year away.