France plans new conference on financial crisis

France will host a January meeting of world leaders and experts to look for ways out of the global financial crisis, the president's office said Tuesday.

President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown returned from a Washington summit over the weekend with less ambitious commitments than they had sought for changes to the world financial system.

The Jan. 8-9 meeting in Paris will be co-hosted by Sarkozy and Brown's predecessor, Tony Blair. French officials said it was too soon to confirm which world leaders will attend, but that Nobel economists including Joseph Stiglitz and India's Amartya Sen will be present.

Blair was quoted in the French presidency's statement as saying the conference comes at a moment "when we are trying to define a new model of capitalism and reflect on the values that will help us adapt to globalization."

Sarkozy's office said the meeting is meant to be complementary to the Washington summit, but a less formal forum.

His office's statement originally called the January meeting a "summit." But French Public Policies Minister Eric Besson, who Sarkozy said will help organize the meeting, later told The Associated Press by telephone that it will be more of a "conference" - and that no decisions will be taken.

The January meeting "is totally unconnected from the cycle of conferences known as the 'G20'," Besson said, referring to the Group of 20 rich and developing countries around which the Washington summit was organized. "It's not an operational and decision-making colloquium like the G20s are."

Sarkozy and Blair had pushed U.S. President George W. Bush to host the Washington summit and had hoped for decisions on greater financial market regulation, global alignment of accounting standards, and a bigger role for the International Monetary Fund. Instead, leaders from rich and developing nations agreed on broad themes to tackle the financial crisis, and to keep talking.

They agreed to hold another summit, tentatively in London, after U.S. President-elect Barack Obama takes office Jan. 20.