"The U.N. must be at the heart of the reconstruction and administration of Iraq," said De Villepin told the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

"The legitimacy of our action depends on it. We must come together to build peace together in a region rife with a sense of insecurity and deep fault lines," De Villepin said.

France's main priority for post-war Iraq was for the United Nations to pass a resolution allowing the country's stalled UN oil-for-food program to restart, he said, adding that the world's major powers "must rebuild the world order shattered by the Iraqi crisis".

He also said his country was confident that Paris could rebuild its damaged relations with both Britain and the United States.

"Because they share common values, the United States and France will re-establish close cooperation in complete solidarity," he said.

Relations between France and Britain has been low since France strongly opposed a new UN resolution that would authorize war against Iraq.

Britain and the United States claimed that it was French intransigence that had made a second resolution impossible.

(Xinhua News Agency March 28, 2003)