French arms exports totaled more than $5.75 billion in 2002 and $5.6 billion in 2003, according to the report sent to France's National Assembly on Jan. 31, and excerpted in the Wednesday afternoon edition of Le Monde newspaper.

More significantly, the new report suggests Paris is focusing on a more ethical approach to weapons sales, breaking from old allegations that French arms helped prop up dictatorial governments or destabilized countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.

The latest tallies place Paris a distant third in world arms sales, behind the United States and Britain. By comparison, U.S. arms exports accounted for $40 billion of some $200 billion in international weapons sales in 2001 alone.

France has long ranked third in arms sales overseas.

A report by the Congressional Research Service placed France as the third leading arms supplier between 1998 and 2001, behind the United States and Russia. China overtook Paris briefly, to rank third in 2001.

A number of Middle Eastern nations have traditionally figured among top buyers of French weapons, including Iraq under former President Saddam Hussein.

Taiwan and Saudi America have also been top French arms clients.

But demand has recently shifted to European nations, which accounted for 32 percent of French arms exports between 1994 and 2003, according to the new government report.

Libya also offers fertile new ground for French arms exports, thanks to newly strengthened ties between Paris and Tripoli, Le Monde reported.

French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie is scheduled to pay a two-day visit to the Libyan capital this week, aimed to strengthen military cooperation between the two countries. The visit may result in new arms contracts from Libya, which has major armament needs.

Beyond reaffirming France's prominent place in a lucrative global industry, the report suggests Paris is trying to adopt a more moral approach when it comes to arms sales.

The government report, according to Le Monde, cited "a great priority on ethical criteria, and considers that furnishing material susceptible to seeding internal repression must be refused."

In the past, France - like a number of other arms exporters - has been criticized for selling weapons to prop up undemocratic regimes, including that of Iraq under Saddam Hussein and a number of African nations.

In other cases, French expor ts have been deemed simply illegal - including an alleged arms-for-oil deal in Angola that involved Jean-Francois Mitterrand, son of the former French President Francois Mitterrand.

However, in a sign of changing times, French President Jacques Chirac and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pushed last year for an international tax on arms sales to help finance poverty-alleviation programs in developing countries.

Paris also pressed successfully for a United Nations arms embargo against the Ivorian government of President Laurent Gbagbo, whose country is mired in a low-level civil war.

The new emphasis on ethical arms sales is being echoed across the European Union. In 1998, Brussels introduced an E.U.-wide code of conduct on arms shipments. Critics, however, charge the code is ineffective in properly monitoring sales and shipments of weapons.

Recent lobbying by France and Germany to lift an EU arms embargo against China, imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of student demonstrators in Beijing, has also been criticized as putting business ahead of human rights concerns.

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