FRANCE and the United States clashed yesterday over a UN resolution calling for a truce in the Middle East, even as Israel began its push deeper into Lebanon.

President Chirac of France threatened that Paris would introduce its own proposal to the Security Council if the deadlock in talks with Washington was not broken.

“It does seem that there is an American reservation about adopting this draft,” M Chirac said after a meeting with members of his Cabinet in the south of France. “I can’t imagine that there would be no solution because that would mean . . . the most immoral result, that we accept the current situation and that we abandon an immediate ceasefire. I can’t imagine that of the Americans or anyone else.

“If we don’t manage it there will obviously be a debate in the Security Council and everyone will present their position clearly, including, of course, France with its own resolution.”

M Chirac was reacting to leaks from American officials that France was walking away from an earlier agreement with the US on a text.

The two powers remained at odds over how to address Arab League demands for an immediate Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

France was pushing for the resolution to call for at least the symbolic start of an Israeli pullback as soon as fighting ended. But the US was resisting any UN action that could allow Hezbollah guerrillas to regroup in southern Lebanon as Israel left.

The deadlock caused the postponement of a meeting of foreign ministers in New York that Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, had tentatively scheduled for last night, before a UN vote. But John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN, said that he was still hoping for a vote this week. “We still would like to try to do that this week. We are in the process of non-stop meetings to do that,” he said.

Last night he and his French counterpart held meetings with ambassadors from the other veto-bearing permanent members of the Security Council: Britain, China and Russia. France and the US released a joint proposal last Saturday after consultations with the Lebanese Government and Israel.

The draft resolution called for a “full cessation of hostilities”, the creation of a buffer zone and the deployment of an international force. But the package was reopened after the Lebanese Government, under pressure from Hezbollah, objected to a truce that left Israeli troops on Lebanese soil.

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