French President Emmanuel Macron denounced on Friday the European Commission's "bad manners" following its decision to provisionally apply the Mercosur trade deal and called the move a "bad surprise" for France.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said earlier on Friday that the European Union will implement the mammoth trade deal with the South American Mercosur bloc while waiting for a top court's ruling on its legality.

"For France, this is a surprise, and a bad one," Macron said in a strongly-worded statement, adding the move showed "bad manners towards the European Parliament".

"The European Commission has made the unilateral decision to provisionally apply the agreement with Mercosur, even though the European Parliament has not voted on it. It is thus taking on a very heavy responsibility."

"We will be uncompromising on compliance with these rules, because Europe has significantly tightened the rules on our producers in recent years," Macron added.

"And so I will never defend an agreement that is lax on imports and tough on what we produce at home, because it is inconsistent for European consumers and criminal for European sovereignty," he said. (AFP)



Edited by Robert Kemp