France says Spain should attend financial summit

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy will lobby for Spain to be invited to a forthcoming international summit on reforming the financial system, his office said on Wednesday.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had said on Tuesday he wanted Spain to be invited to the summit due to the size of its economy and the relative strength of its banks.

Sarkozy expressed his support to Zapatero in a telephone conversation on Tuesday afternoon, the French president's office said in a statement.

"He told him he was convinced Spain deserved a place at the forthcoming international finance summit, based on its weight in the world economy (the 8th biggest GDP)," the statement said.

"The president will make the case for Spain's participation to the summit's American hosts," the statement said.

Sarkozy had previously said he wanted to include India and China in the summit, together with the world's richest nations. But Spain was not on the list despite being home to the biggest bank in the euro zone, Santander.

Spanish officials had already been fuming over Sarkozy's failure to invite Spain to an impromptu European summit on the financial crisis in Paris earlier this month.

U.S. President George Bush announced on October 18 he would host the first in a proposed series of global summits on the financial crisis as the world grapples with the biggest economic debacle since the Great Depression.

Bush made the announcement after a meeting with Sarkozy, who has called for a revamp of the international financial architecture established after World War Two at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference.