"Some say they belong to the Left, but in fact they are culturally extremely reactionary," José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission said in an interview with the International Herald Tribune published on Monday, reports The Telegraph.
That prompted Jean-Christophe Cambedelis, a national secretary of France's ruling party, to describe his remarks as "intolerable", saying he should "retract his comments or quit".
A Commission spokesman said "there is no basic disagreement between the Commission and the French government on this question." He also denied that Mr Barroso's criticism targeted France's Socialist government.
Mr Barroso's unusually outspoken words followed a marathon round of difficult European Union talks on Friday after France held up agreement between the bloc's 27 trade ministers on the exact terms of the Commission's mandate to negotiate a EU-US trade deal.
Paris insisted that the audiovisual sector be excluded from the negotiations. After 13 hours, a compromise was finally reached agreeing to the French demand but which also stated that the Commission could come back on the question if necessary.
France has hit back at suggestions that its determination to protect Europe's film and cultural industries in free trade talks with the US is reactionary.
Without naming France, Mr Barroso said that those fearful of a US cultural invasion of Europe "have an anti-global agenda." Such critics have "no understanding of the benefits that globalisation brings also from a cultural point of view," he added.
Commission spokesman Olivier Bailly said at a daily media briefing on Monday that the word "reactionary" was not levelled at France but at "those who on the sidelines launched personal attacks" on Mr Barroso.
Asked whether he was referring to European film directors and other artists who backed France's insistence that cultural products should benefit from special safeguards, Mr Bailly simply said the criticism targeted "cultural and political figures."
Greek director Costa-Gavras last week said Barroso was "a danger to European culture" while French right-wing European lawmaker Rachida Dati demanded he resign on the grounds he was "kowtowing to the United States."
EU treaties enshrined what is known as the "cultural exception" and it was therefore the Commission's duty to defend such values, Mr Bailly said.
Read more of this AFP report in The Telegraph.