By Alan Little BBC Paris correspondent

Sarkozy says he does not want confrontation

A move to lead the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) would defy his boss, President Jacques Chirac.

Mr Chirac publicly rebuked Mr Sarkozy on Bastille Day.

Asked directly about Mr Sarkozy's ambition to become leader of the governing UMP, he said his finance minister could not hold both posts.

Mr Chirac warned that if any minister becomes president of the party he must resign his ministerial post or, as he put it, "I will immediately remove him from the government."

Support

As president, Mr Chirac said, "I make the decisions. Ministers carry them out."

In his first interview since this very public dressing down, Mr Sarkozy said he had no desire to get into a confrontation with the president.

There can be disagreements, he said, but it is always the president who has the last word.

Nonetheless, he said he had no intention of stepping down as finance minister and that his first reaction to Mr Chirac's rebuke was a feeling of injustice. He said he had received hundreds of messages of support from French people.

In a recent opinion poll, almost half of those asked said they wanted Mr Sarkozy to stand for the presidency of the party.

Choice

Among those who support the governing party, nearly two thirds said they supported a Sarkozy candidacy.

Mr Sarkozy has made no secret of his desire to replace Mr Chirac as president of the republic at the next election in 2007.

The judgement he has to make now is whether the best route to the Elysee Palace lies through the finance ministry or the leadership of the party in parliament.