PARIS (AP) — The French government says it wants the European Union to end talks with the U.S. on forging a sweeping trade deal that it sees as too friendly to U.S. business.

The comments Tuesday by Matthias Fekl, France's secretary of state for foreign trade, are the latest blow to the proposed Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. There's resistance on both continents to the free-trade zone that would encompass half the world economy, and the talks are complicated by Britain's exit from the EU and presidential elections in the U.S. and France.

Fekl called for a "pure, simple" stop to negotiations, but said talks could resume if wider EU-U.S. trade relations improved.

"We need a clear, clean, definitive halt to negotiations to be able to resume on a good basis," he said on RMC radio, without elaborating on what conditions would be necessary for new talks.

Accusing the American side of offering just "crumbs," Fekl said France would ask the European Commission, which is negotiating for the 28-nation EU, to halt the talks at a trade ministers' meeting in Slovakia next month. "That's not how allies should negotiate."

German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who is also Germany's vice chancellor, had said Sunday that "in my opinion, the negotiations with the United States have de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it."

Chief EU negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero played down Gabriel's talk of failure. And in Washington, Matt McAlvanah, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Public Affairs, insisted that "negotiations are in fact making steady progress."