(adds quotes, background)
By Silvia Aloisi
ROME, Feb 24 (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Tuesday the European Union should protect its industries in the same way the United States does and urged his partners to take "strong decisions" in defence of European interests.
"From next Sunday, Italy and France will talk with tough language and ask Europe (at a European Union crisis summit) to take strong decisions," Sarkozy told a news conference in Rome alongside Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
"If the United States defends its farmers as it does, we can do the same in Europe; if the United States defends its industry, as it does, they are right, maybe in Europe we can do the same," said Sarkozy.
Sarkozy's words will concern economists who fear protectionist measures risk lengthening the global recession. His rhetoric also clashes with a string of verbal commitments from policymakers that they will avoid resorting to protectionism.
A "Buy America" clause in the U.S.' $787 billion rescue plan approved by Congress this month raised the hackles of many governments by insisting firms use U.S. steel and other U.S. goods in public works projects.
Within Europe, France has already been accused of
protectionism by some of its partners over its aid package for
the car sector which offered a 6 billion euro state loan to
Renault
But Sarkozy said France had been forced to act on its own because the EU was not intervening.
"I would have much preferred a common European policy to support the car industry," he said, adding that Germany and Sweden were now taking similar measures to those adopted by Paris and Rome to help car makers.
Finance ministers of the Group of Seven rich nations who met in Rome this month stressed the importance of free trade and their final joint statement said they were "committed to avoiding protectionist measures, which would only exacerbate the downturn."
European Central Bank Executive Board Member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi summed up the concerns of many when he said during the G7: "Governments meet and write statements against protectionism and then they go home and adopt protectionist measures."
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss Kahn on Saturday drew a distinction between old-style "voluntary" protectionism and more subtle "involuntary protectionism" which is now emerging to face the crisis.
"We are not facing a risk of the old-style protectionism of raising tariffs," he told reporters. "The problem is that everyone has to deal with their own taxpayers and the risk is that (the measures adopted) will hurt their neighbours."
Sarkozy on Tuesday warned the economic crisis could get worse before it gets better and gave a lukewarm reception to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's attempts to fix the financial crisis in the United States.
"Geithner's proposal hasn't reassured markets," he said, adding that a U.S' plan to buy so-called bad assets from banks "could create problems for competition."
(additional reporting by Gavin Jones and Phil Stewart)