France wants stake in Russian gas giant

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said yesterday that French investors wanted a stake in Russia's Gazprom gas giant as part of efforts to bolster politically-sensitive energy ties between Russia and Europe.

Speaking after a Kremlin meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mr Sarkozy, on his first visit to Russia as president, said the two men had also narrowed their differences on Iran's nuclear programme, though disagreements remained.

Both leaders said they wanted a deeper energy partnership between Russia and Europe - which receives a quarter of its gas from Russia. The issue has been at the root of heated political wrangling between Moscow and European capitals.

"France's policy is transparency and reciprocity," Mr Sarkozy told reporters as he stood alongside Mr Putin. Many European leaders want greater access for their firms to Russia's tightly-controlled energy sector, including gas export monopoly Gazprom. Russia, for its part, complains its firms are blocked from making big acquisitions in Europe.

"It's quite normal that our Russian friends should want to enter the capital of a certain number of French companies and that the opposite should be true as well.

"I have told President Putin of the readiness of French investors to enter the capital of big Russian companies, for example Gazprom," he added, pointing out that Russia had invested in European aerospace group EADS.

Mr Putin responded by saying it was "absolutely honest, transparent (and) mutually acceptable," for Russian and European firms to exchange stakes.

Mr Putin is to travel to Tehran next week for talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Russia - unlike France and other Western powers - does not favour new UN sanctions over Iran's nuclear ambitions. "I believe that there is a certain convergence of our opinions (on Iran)," Mr Sarkozy told reporters.

But the French leader gave no specifics while Mr Putin repeated his view there was no evidence Iran was developing a nuclear weapon, underlining the differences that still exist between Russia and Western powers.

European appeals for a liberalisation of Russia's energy sector have in the past met a cool response.

Mr Putin insists the state will retain a controlling stake in strategic energy assets while foreign investors have had their stakes squeezed in several Russian energy projects.

The only big foreign investor in state-controlled Gazprom is Germany's E.ON with a direct stake of six per cent, while Italian energy group ENI has 20 per cent stake in Gazprom's oil arm Gazprom Neft.