TOKYO, March 18, 2010 (AFP) - France wants to wait for a scientific report on bluefin tuna due next year before the world community bans trade in the fish, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in a Japanese interview.
    The French fishing industry has backed Japan in opposing the proposed ban, which is supported by the European Union and the United States at ongoing talks of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
    Members of the 175-nation convention gathered in Doha should "wait for" the report on bluefin tuna stocks due to be issued by a CITES panel in May next year, Kouchner told Thursday's edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper.
    "I hope that an irreversible decision will not be made until the danger of extinction is scientifically proved," he was quoted as saying in the interview published in Japanese.
    Kouchner was due to arrive in Japan Thursday to meet with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada.
    Japan, which buys three-quarters of the global bluefin haul, is campaigning fiercely to prevent Mediterranean and Atlantic catches from falling under CITES' Appendix I, which outlaws all international commerce.
    Environmental groups warn that bluefin tuna faces disappearance because of overfishing in the two seas, mainly for the lucrative market in Japan, where the species is the costly mainstay of sushi and sashimi.
    While the EU as a whole backs a ban, French ministers have called for a breathing space to allow scientists to determine precise stocks of the fish.
    Any ban should only come into force in 18 months, French Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said last month.
    Next year's CITES report will be based on a fresh evaluation of the bluefin tuna population by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas that is expected by November, the Yomiuri said.