Families of victims of the 1989 bombing of a French airliner returned from Libya on Sunday after failing to negotiate a compensation package on par with the $2.7 billion settlement for the bombing of a Pan Am jet over Scotland.

With a U.N. showdown brewing, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin met with representatives of the families immediately after they returned to Paris and expressed his "full support for their action," the ministry said in a statement.

French President Jacques Chirac called Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to convey "the importance that France attaches to the resolution of this problem," the ministry's statement said.

Paris has been embarrassed by the size of Libya's compensation agreement concerning the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which families of the 270 victims will each receive between $5 million and $10 million. Libya has accepted responsibility for the bombing.

By contrast, the families of the 170 victims of the ill-fated UTA flight shared $33 million in a 1999 settlement with Libya, with families of each victim receiving about $194,000. The plane blew up over the Sahara Desert in Niger.

The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions in 1992 to force Gadhafi's government to surrender two men wanted in the Pan Am bombing.

The French government has threatened to block a British proposal to lift U.N. sanctions against Libya in the wake of the Pan Am settlement, saying it wants a better deal for families of the UTA victims.

France could use its veto as a permanent member of the Security Council to block the British proposal.

A spokesman for the French families, Guillaume Denoix de Saint Marc, said negotiations with members of Gadhafi's government broke down because their Libyan counterparts refused to offer an "equitable solution."

"It seemed to us that this blockage was because our counterparts did not have any margin of maneuver for taking a definite position. That's the reason we came back to Paris," he said, adding: "The ball is therefore in Libya's camp."

Libya Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam said Aug. 17 that "the issue of the French airliner was settled years ago. As far as we are concerned, this issue is over."

U.N diplomats said last week they would give France more time to reach an agreement concerning the UTA flight before voting to lift sanctions against the North African country, though they stressed that France must act quickly.

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