Alliot-Marie, who is due to travel to Washington on Thursday, is expected to discuss "bilateral defence relations" with US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, defence ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau said.

She will later fly to New York for a meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Relations between France and the US have been at rock-bottom since France refused to support the US war to topple former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Last week French President Jacques Chirac continued to underline the gulf separating the two in foreign policy when he reaffirmed France's vision of a multipolar world and pointed to the risks of the occupation of Iraq.

One of Rumsfeld's senior advisors, Richard Perle, recommended in a book just published that US military ties to France should be limited and that Washington should seek to isolate Paris in Europe.

Bureau said discussions between the officials would be wide-ranging and that they would include the Iraq, although he declined to be more specific.

Other issues on the agenda were joint action in Afghanistan and reform of NATO, Bureau said.

Alliot-Marie is scheduled to meet Annan on Friday afternoon and the two are likely to talk about peacekeeping operations in Africa and the possibility of a UN force being sent to troubled Ivory Coast, a former French colony.

WAR.WIRE