PARIS: France may follow the United States, Britain and Germany in taxing banks to pay for aid handed out in the financial crisis, the French finance minister said today. Asked on the radio station RMC whether she backed the idea of such a bank tax, minister Christine Lagarde said “yes of course, in principle”, but added that such a tax in France would not be “necessarily exactly like Germany’s. “It’s an idea we have been working on in France for several months and which we have debated with the members of the International Monetary Fund,” which is due to deliver its recommendations next month, Lagarde said. Germany has drawn up a bank tax aimed at funding bailouts and is due to launch it at the end of this month. Britain was also expected to unveil new bank taxes when the government presents its budget plan today. US President Barack Obama in January unveiled a plan to tax risky assets of big American financial institutions to recoup the cost of a bailout of the sector costing hundreds of billions of dollars. France was not forced to directly bail out banks but it provided tens of billions of euros last year in loans and guarantees to French banks and has introduced a tax on bankers’ bonuses. Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday he was ready to risk provoking a “crisis” in European relations in his efforts to defend EU farm subsidies to French farmers. “I am ready to head into a crisis in Europe sooner than accept that the Common Agricultural Policy be dismantled,” said Sarkozy in his first public speech since his UMP party’s humiliation in Sunday’s regional elections. “I will not let our farms die.” He vowed today to push on with economic reforms and threatened a ‘crisis’ in Europe to defend farm subsidies as he fought back from an election defeat that cast doubt on his leadership. “To stop now would ruin everything we have achieved. You trusted me to modernise France. I will live up to my promises,” he said, in his first speech since his right-wing UMP was trounced by the left in Sunday’s regional elections. Sarkozy appealed to core supporters in business and the countryside, pledging to plow on with his agenda despite the global slowdown.