Paris and Berlin are seeking to avert conflict at the United Nations when the arms inspectors report from Iraq on Monday, but gloom is growing in European capitals over one of the biggest transatlantic spats for years.

As well as splitting Washington from the “old” Continent, the quarrel over the legality of a possible US-led attack on Iraq is driving a wedge through the European Union with Britain outside a strengthening alliance between France and Germany.

“If this is not defused, we could be in for one of those defining moments, like de Gaulle withdrawing from Nato or the Suez crisis,” a diplomat from a Benelux country said. She was referring to European-US feuds of the 1950s and 1960s involving France that shaped the landscape after the Second World War.

De Gaulle estranged France from the Atlantic camp in 1966 when Paris left the alliance’s military structure and made overtures to Moscow. Britain was on France’s side in the 1956 Suez invasion which was condemned by Washington and the UN.

Comparisons with past crises appeared across the EU yesterday after Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary for Defence, stung France and Germany with his dismissal of an obsolete “old Europe”.

President Chirac ordered his ministers to hold their fire after their outbursts on Thursday. Rosalynne Bachelot, the Environment Minister, said Mr Rumsfeld deserved only an obscenity in reply.

Germany’s mass-circulation Bild reminded him of his German ancestry. “Mister Rumsfeld, hundreds of thousands of your GIs fell for ‘old Europe’ because they freed us from the tyranny of Hitler. You are sinning against your own heroes by disparaging ‘old Europe’. Your GIs died for the ideals of your place of origin,” it said.

It is clear that M Chirac has decided after months of ambivalence to raise the stakes and to stand up to Washington along with Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor.

He has calculated that with French and world opinion massively against an unauthorised invasion of Iraq, France can profitably assume its old posture as independent of the US and as guardian of international morality.

There is, however, a certain piquancy because M Chirac is by temperament the most Americanophile President of France for decades.

Paris has not slammed the door, leaving open the possibility of French participation in a UN-approved military action if Iraq is shown to be in breach of its obligations. After its implied threats this week to wield its UN veto, France is counting on mustering a “moral” majority in the 15-member council in favour of giving the weapons inspectors more time. If pushed on a US-backed resolution, it is not clear that Paris would go as far as using a veto.

Dominique de Villepin, the Foreign Minister, is still hoping to broker a compromise with Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, to extend the period for weapons inspections. France is, however, weighing the wisdom of continuing to withhold support if a US-led offensive takes place.

Opposing Washington will ensure that Paris, along with Berlin, will be banished from US favour for as long as President Bush holds office. French generals were reported yesterday to be making the case for at least a symbolic military support.

The novelty compared with past French-US spats over security matters is that Paris is leading an EU majority along with Germany, which is traditionally pro-Atlantic. More or less in the pro-American camp are Britain, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Denmark. However, most of the eight former communist states which are to join the EU next year are behind the US. Washington deems Poland, under President Kwasniewski, to be one of its staunchest allies.

Paris has long known that enlarging the EU means tipping the balance towards an EU majority with a pro-American, pro-market outlook. Yesterday, Le Monde, voice of the elite, came close to acknowledging defeat. Mr Rumsfeld was right, it said. “It is perhaps unpleasant to hear it, but for the moment it is unavoidable: the countries of East Europe are massively inclined to follow automatically American leadership in defence and foreign policy.”

The split over Iraq makes a mockery of the EU’s hopes of pulling together as what the French call l’Europe-puissance — Power Europe — on the world stage. Chris Patten, the British EU Commissioner for external relations, worried yesterday that Britain, France, Germany and Spain, the EU members currently on the UN Security Council, would split over Iraq. “Let’s be frank. This will be an important failure for our efforts to build a common foreign policy for the Union,” he told Le Monde.

Mr Patten, a former Conservative Cabinet Minister, said Britain faced an “existential” test over Iraq. It would never be able to join France and Germany in “sharing the leadership” of the EU until it decided the question: “Are we semi-detached or are we playing a full part in the process of affirming the position of Europe in the world?” This view is strongly held in France, which takes a scathing view of Tony Blair’s enthusiasm for the US cause.

Last autumn London and Paris played a diplomatic duo of good-cop, bad-cop, persuading Washington to take the UN route over Iraq. Their approaches have now diverged, setting the scene for a frosty encounter when M Chirac meets Mr Blair for the delayed Anglo-French summit in Le Touquet on February 4.

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