PARIS, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- French President Francois Hollande on Friday denounced the economic protectionism repeated several times by his new American counterpart Donald Trump, local media reported.
Hollande made the remarks during a visit to a company located in the French department of Vosges (east), French television channel BFMTV reported.
"It is not possible or desirable to want to isolate oneself from the world economy," Hollande said, a few hours before Trump's inauguration.
Donald Trump was sworn in on Friday as the 45th president of the United States.
Hollande recalled that negotiations on a free trade agreement between the U.S. and the European Union were "for the moment suspended, finally, in any case, postponed", according to the report.
"For France, it was not possible to have commercial exchanges if there was not a recognition of the origin of products, whether agricultural, industrial or cultural," Hollande stressed.
"We must not imagine France close to the rest of the world," the French president was quoted as saying.
