France, facing a presidential election in weeks, has halted moves to clear an EU trade deal with Mexico which would allow in 20,000 tonnes of beef imports and wants to make it tougher to access the bloc's markets, diplomats say.
The European Union's second largest economy runs a consistent overall trade surplus with non-EU countries and its companies benefit from the lower tariffs of trade deals, but farmer sensitivity to beef imports in particular makes trade politically explosive.
