The prospect of being dragged into the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg next Tuesday does not seem to worry French authorities. They still believe that France is being singled out unfairly for abuse by British politicians, newspapers and farmers.
"There is a sort of anti-French, francophobe and xenophobic explosion in Great Britain," Mr Jean Glavany, the French Minister for Agriculture, complained yesterday. "We say to the British, `instead of this explosion, open your eyes and let's talk about what we can do together'."
A meeting between the British and French Prime Ministers at the congress of the Socialist International last Monday and a half-hour telephone conversation on Thursday failed to resolve the dispute.
But talks continued yesterday at a special session of the EU's Scientific Steering Committee, held in Brussels at French request. Paris insisted that a German observer attend, because 12 of the 16 German lander also demand further British assurances before they vote in the Bundesrat to lift the embargo. French officials are quick to point out that 47 countries around the world - including the US - still enforce a ban on British beef.
After meeting with the President of the EU Commission Mr Romano Prodi, on Thursday, President Jacques Chirac said that "a certain number of guarantees" were needed before France could lift the embargo and that "whatever happens, France will demand that the principle of precaution be respected". Earlier, the junior minister for consumer affairs, Ms Marylise Lebranchu, said: "It's not that serious if the European Commission prosecutes France."
The main French argument is that, although the number of cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Britain has declined from 3,200 in 1998 to over 2,000 this year, the decrease is slower than expected. But the EU allows only calves under the age of 30 months - in whom the disease is virtually unknown - to be exported, the British respond. About 20 BSE cases have been detected in France this year, and of the 43 people who have died of
Creuzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), the human variant of BSE, 42 died in Britain.
If it is to lift its embargo, France demands stricter regulations in five areas: checks and laboratory testing of British cattle, traceability of beef by-products, traceability of animals and labels of origin for exported beef.
London counters that it is not allowed to export beef by-products, and that the EU has approved its checking and tracing procedures. In France, when a cow is found to suffer from BSE, the entire herd is slaughtered. Because this is not done in Britain, the French demand total traceability for British cattle.
Paris would also like compulsory BSE tests on slaughtered British cattle. Several laboratory tests have been approved by Brussels. In Switzerland, where BSE is rare, use of the tests has shown that more cattle are infected than previously suspected.
If Britain were forced to label its beef by geographic origin, as France demands, it is likely that French consumers would refuse to buy it. But if the embargo is lifted without compulsory labelling, French shoppers will probably buy only "safe" regional labels like Charolais beef, and other French farmers would suffer from the suspicion their beef could be British.
France's stand on the beef embargo is the result of the "contaminated blood syndrome". Several thousand French people have died of AIDS contracted from HIV-tainted blood that was distributed through government negligence in the mid-1980s. As a result, a former prime minister, Mr Laurent Fabius, and two of his ministers were tried for manslaughter earlier this year.
The safety of food and medicine has become an obsession, and the government will not take the risk of being accused of infecting French citizens with CJD by allowing British beef in. The fact that most French people support the cautious approach of the Prime Minister, Mr Jospin, is a political incentive for him to hold out.
But opinion may be shifting. The left-wing newspaper Liberation yesterday reversed its earlier stand against British beef. Allowing national committees to override rulings by EU bodies "contains the seed of the undoing of the European Union", Liberation said.
An easy way out would be the rapid creation of an independent European health agency, the paper suggested.