(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission rallied on Wednesday behind EU trade chief Peter Mandelson, under fire from French President Nicolas Sarkozy as WTO trade talks reach a make-or-break point.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso "has full confidence in the trade commissioner's work," spokeswoman Pia AhrenKilde Hansen told reporters after the latest clash between Mandelson and the French leader.

Mandelson "negotiates for all 27 member states and has done very good work for all 27 member states," she added.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband also backed Mandelson, telling Channel 4 News television Wednesday that "Peter is doing an excellent job on behalf of the whole of the EU to get a trade deal that is good for us and good for the wider world."

He insisted that the spat "isn't about Britain versus France," and noted that "27 European countries have given Peter Mandelson the negotiating mandate, 27 countries including France."

The very public spat between the French leader and Europe's British trade commissioner -- a former cabinet minister under Tony Blair -- cast a cloud over the debut of France's presidency of the European Union on Tuesday.

The latest row was sparked by Sarkozy saying on Monday that he would block any WTO agreement that would sacrifice farm production on the "altar of global liberalism."

Both Mandelson and WTO director general Pascal Lamy -- a Frenchman who was the previous EU trade commissioner -- "want to make us accept a deal under which Europe would commit to cutting farm output by 20 percent and reduce farm exports by 10 percent," Sarkozy told French television channel France 3.

"That would be 100,000 jobs lost, I won't let it happen," he added.

Mandelson's spokesman dismissed the charge, arguing that Sarkozy's figures were based on what would happen if Europe gave in to demands from developing countries, which he insisted Mandelson had not done.

"He is basing his figures on false assumptions," said Mandelson's spokesman Peter Power. "The figures he is giving are figures that would be valid (if) the EU had agreed to the full demands of the G20 (large developing) countries."

"We have not agreed, we will never agree to the full demands of the G20."

Hitting back at Sarkozy's most recent criticism of his handling of negotiations, Mandelson told the BBC on Tuesday that he was "being undermined and Europe's negotiating position in the world trade talks is being weakened."

Sarkozy, who hosted EU commissioners in Paris to mark the start of the French EU presidency, said earlier on Tuesday that the media-savvy Mandelson would be loving the publicity stirred up by their disagreement.

The French leader has long been fiercely critical of Mandelson, accusing him of offering excessively generous concessions on farming in fraught global negotiations at the World Trade Organisation.

The European Union is a heavy hitter in the WTO, accounting for nearly 20 percent of world trade.

The Doha round of trade liberalisation negotiations, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, has long struggled, with all sides refusing to make big concessions.

Lamy, who has called a special meeting of the main WTO players later this month, says that progress on trade in agriculture and industrial products before the end of the month is pivotal to the overall talks.

Time is running out to make a breakthrough in the negotiations, which were supposed to be completed before the end of 2004, before the current US administration steps aside in January.

Clashes between Brussels and Paris have become commonplace over the years at each important phase of the WTO talks, with Sarkozy and his predecessor Jacques Chirac firmly against large-scale concessions on farm products.

France is Europe's biggest agricultural power as well as the largest recipient of generous EU farm subsidies, which campaign groups say contribute significantly to poverty in the developing world.

Even ahead of the most recent exchange, Sarkozy accused Mandelson at an EU summit in Brussels last month of spooking Irish voters with his WTO negotiating positions, contributing to their rejection of the bloc's Lisbon Treaty in a referendum.

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