French finance minister says Europe must defend industrial interests against China

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Wednesday that Europe needs to "show its teeth" in defending its industrial and trade interests against China's subsidized production, but said he did not want to start a trade war.

Le Maire also told reporters on the sidelines of International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings that Europe needed to make a decisive push to increase growth, in part by giving advantages to its clean energy industries and promoting a European capital markets union.

"There is a need for Europe to better defend its interests. Its economic and industrial interests on the basis of reciprocity and a level playing field," Le Maire said. "So this is the point on which I'll be focusing my statements and my discussions" at the meetings in Washington.

He said, however, that he did not envision imposing trade barriers or tariffs to keep Chinese products out of European markets but implementing the European Union's carbon border adjustment mechanism to give an advantage to Europe's cleaner industries and penalizing imports made with higher levels of pollution.

Le Maire also said that reciprocal industrial support measures for European industries, similar to those offered in the United States and China, were needed.

(Reporting by David Lawder; editing by Jonathan Oatis)