Prospects for the proposed EU-US trade deal have been cast into further doubt after the French trade minister called for an end to talks.
Matthias Fekl, the French minister for foreign trade, tweeted on Tuesday morning that the country is calling for negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to cease.
His comments came after German economy minister Sigmar Gabriel said at the weekend that the current round of talks with the US have "de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it".
His views were in marked contrast to public comments by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said last month the proposed US-EU deal was "absolutely in Europe's interest".
But Mr Gabriel, who is the head of Germany's centre-left Social Democratic Party which is in coalition with Ms Merkel's centre-right Christian Democratic Union, said: "We mustn't submit to the American proposals."
The prospect of TTIP failing could also be welcomed on the left of British politics, as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been a prominent critic of the proposed deal.