A government spokesman said the bill reflected both the concerns of environmentalists and the needs of scientific research, but critics charged that it paved the way for an uncontrolled spread of GMO cultivation.

"We decided not to close the door (to GMO technologies), while keeping a close watch on what is done," said junior research minister Francois Goulard.

Faced with deep public distrust of GMOs, France has dragged its feet over implementing European Union directives from 2001 and 2003 but now faces heavy fines unless it moves to write the rules into national legislation.

Parliament is to start debating the bill by next month, and the government hopes a law will be adopted by the end of the year.

Sixty percent of the French are hostile to GMO crops, polls show, and 78 percent would back a temporary moratorium until their impact on health and the environment is fully understood.

Campaign groups including Greenpeace and the Small Farmers Confederation of anti-globalisation campaigner Jose Bove -- who has been jailed for destroying GMO crops -- have led fierce opposition to any loosening of the rules on GMOs.

Court decisions last year acquitting two groups of activists who destroyed GMO crops have further bolstered their opponents.

Under the French bill, farmers would have to officially register any plantation of modified crops, filling a legal void that allowed 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of GMO maize (corn) to be grown undeclared last year -- out of 90 million hectares grown worldwide.

The public would be consulted about any new GMO trials, while any sale of GMOs would need prior authorisation and be subject to strict labelling rules.

Green party deputy Noel Mamere slammed the bill as a "masquerade" that would fail to ensure transparency over the risks of GMO crops, repeating calls for a five-year moratorium on the cultures.

By general consensus, the early generation of GM plants -- mostly maize, soya, cotton and colza (rape or canola) -- has so far had no effect on human health.

Environmentalists though say that not enough time has elapsed to assess the long-term impacts of GM crops, even though a second, more sophisticated generation of plants is about to emerge from the labs.

Many scientists share this concern. Their worry is that the inserted genes in GM crops contaminate other species through wind-borne pollen.

The big champion of GM foods is the United States, which accuses the EU of erecting de facto trade barriers against GM products that Washington insists are safe.

The World Trade Organisation on Tuesday backed the United States and other GM-producing countries by ruling that a European moratorium on GMO imports was born of protectionism rather than concerns about health or the environment, according to diplomats in Geneva.

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