"We've been blacklisted for two years on government and military sites, and it looks like it's a decision by the Pentagon to avoid hacker attempts," a spokesman for Wanadoo told AFP.

The situation was highlighted by an article in Monday's edition of the International Herald Tribune newspaper, which said Internet service providers (ISP) in 25 countries could not access the US Federal Voting Assistance Program website (www.fvap.gov) which helps overseas US voters cast their absentee ballots in the November presidential election.

The ISPs affected were Wanadoo, Yahoo in Britain and in Japan, and Telefonica in Spain -- all major players with millions of subscribers.

A website supporting John Kerry, the Democratic challenger to US President George W. Bush in the elections, criticised the measure by posting the article and headlining it "Pentagon Surrenders to Hackers".

A visitor to the site (www.aokerry.com) who gave her name as Sinead Westlough posted a message alleging that "the Republican political appointees who run the Pentagon" were trying to disenfranchise overseas Americans because they were likely to vote against Bush.

"Keep in mind that most Americans overseas speak only English and have no other broadcast media that they can understand," she wrote.

"Under these circumstances, it's hardly surprising that these people (Bush administration officials)... are trying to brainwash and block the registration of other Americans overseas who have better access to media and are more likely to vote against Bush and co.," she wrote.

The IHT quoted an e-mail from the FVAP's web manager, Susan Leader, saying: "We are sorry you cannot access www.fvap.gov. Unfortunately, Wanadoo France has had its access blocked to US government Web sites due to Wanadoo users constantly attempting to hack these sites. We do not expect the block to be lifted."

It gave an alternative website (www.overseasvote2004.com) to help US voters abroad.

A check by AFP showed that other popular ISPs in France, such as Free and Neuf Telecom allowed access to the US state-run websites.

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