French President Francois Hollande | EPA/Etienne Laurent François Hollande: ‘No’ to TTIP at this stage French president says he won’t accept trade deal that goes against ‘essential principles.’

PARIS — French President François Hollande said Tuesday that France could not accept a transatlantic trade agreement between the EU and U.S. at the current stage of talks because his country was against what he called free trade without rules.

"We will never accept questioning essential principles for our agriculture, our culture and for the reciprocity of access to public [procurement] markets," the Agence France-Presse news agency quoted Hollande as saying at a meeting of left-wing politicians in Paris. "At this stage [of talks] France says 'No.'"

While Hollande and other French officials have spoken out previously against a quick TTIP deal, his statement was his strongest yet against the free trade accord. It stopped short of ruling out an agreement completely, but underscored the depth of French opposition to a deal they consider unfavorable to European interests.

It also serves a political purpose for the deeply unpopular Hollande. A year before a presidential election, the Socialist leader is trying to shore up his approval scores among left-wing voters who are largely suspicious of the free trade agreement.

France's trade secretary, Matthias Fekl, said earlier Tuesday that the most likely option was that negotiations between the EU and U.S. on the deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), would be suspended. Last month, Fekl said France would halt the talks if no substantial progress was achieved by September.

Their statements came after Greenpeace published leaked documents stating that U.S. and European negotiators for the TTIP deal had run into "irreconcilable" differences.

U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called last month for negotiations to wrap up before the end of this year.