President Jacques Chirac, under fire from European Union officials for shielding French companies from foreign bidders, called for greater European cooperation on space projects.

Speaking at Franco-Italian satellite maker Alcatel Alenia Space, a subsidiary of France's Alcatel and Italy's Finmeccanica, Mr Chirac said European firms must stick together to keep Europe at the cutting edge of space technology.

"Space must be at the heart of the European project," said Mr Chirac, who proposed the creation of a Mediterranean centre for the prevention of risks using space technology.

Europe should be able to use these systems to monitor global warming and pollution, predict floods and eventually for tracking large meteorites, he said.

The European Commission issued a statement after his speech saying it was already putting together such plans.

Mr Chirac made his comments before a new technical hitch postponed for the third time the launch of a heavy-lift Ariane-5 rocket carrying two satellites from French Guiana on Thursday.

Jean-Yves Le Gall, chief executive officer of the Arianespace rocket launch company said: "A helium leak has been detected in the rocket's motor. We couldn't reach proper pressure and are halting a launch attempt tonight."

Mr Le Gall gave no date for a new launch attempt. The launch had been postponed twice this year due to technical faults. The rocket will launch Spainsat, a Spanish military communications satellite and Hot Bird 7A for Paris-based telecoms operator Eutelsat.

Mr Chirac's calls for European space solidarity come as France faces criticism for its policy of economic patriotism, which aims to protect French firms from foreign takeovers, including from within Europe.

France provoked Italian anger last week by brokering the merger of Gaz de France and Suez just days after Italy's Enel hinted at a takeover of Suez.

EU officials, and those from Britain, Germany and Italy, say France's stance threatens Europe's internal market. La Tribune newspaper reported that Alcatel had obtained the green light from the government to increase its stake in the state-controlled defence group Thales to 25-30 per cent from its current 9.5 per cent.

Mr Chirac said Europe must do more to collaborate on defence technology but said France would keep some areas for itself.

"France must keep control of the most sensitive systems, but there are numerous areas that could be the object of European cooperation," he said.

Europe is in the embarrassing position of waiting to hitch a ride into space from the United States for a €1 billion laboratory that has been stuck on Earth for two years.

The US space shuttle is the only vehicle with the capacity to take the laboratory into space.

Mr Chirac noted that the United States spends six times more of its public funds than Europe on developing space programmes.

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