Paris - France's Socialist Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, said yesterday he was prepared to apologise to the rightist opposition for a remark implying the right favoured slavery 150 years ago and opposed justice in the notorious Dreyfus case.
Outraged conservative deputies stormed out of the National Assembly on Wednesday after Mr Jospin made the remarks which he then said were of historical record.
"The left was certainly for abolition [of slavery] and that was not the case of the right . . . just as the left was for Dreyfus and the right was against him," Mr Jospin had said.
"I imagine the opposition will criticise me during next week's parliamentary questioning, and I will certainly offer my regrets," Mr Jospin told reporters yesterday.
France has this week been observing the 100th anniversary of one of the most influential newspaper editorials in history - Emile Zola's J'Accuse in defence of the wrongly-accused French Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus.