Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy came under fire on Thursday for making an unofficial visit to Russian president Vladimir Putin at his residence near Moscow, where both men expressed regret for disagreements between their countries, reports Reuters.
Paris has been highly critical of Russia's military intervention in Syria and French president François Hollande has said he sees no role for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a future political transition.
Sarkozy, who heads the conservative The Republicans party and is widely expected to make another run for the presidency in 2017, was slammed by the Socialist government over the visit.
French junior minister for higher education and research Thierry Mandon said Sarkozy had no business short-circuiting French foreign policy.
"Diplomacy is complicated, he is like a dog in a bowling alley in this affair," he said on France 2 television.
The vice president of the French parliament's France-Russia friendship group, green party member François Michel-Lambert, said Sarkozy's "parallel diplomacy" was damaging for the country.