Speaking in London, Mr Chirac said a world based on "the logic of power" would lead to conflict.

The French president is in the UK to mark the climax of celebrations of the centenary of the Entente Cordiale.

He said the West could not impose its values on the world and confuse democratisation and Westernisation.

"Granted, it is still possible to organise the world based on a logic of power," Mr Chirac told a gathering sponsored by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

A new multilateralism

"Yet experience has taught us that this type of organisation is, by its very definition, unstable and sooner or later leads to crisis or conflict," he said.

He said that to create a fairer world order no state could act independently.

"It is by recognising the new reality of a multi-polar and interdependent world that we will succeed in building a sounder and fairer international order," Mr Chirac said.

And he made a plea to bolster the role and regard of the United Nations.

"This is why we must work together to revive multilateralism, a multilateralism based on a reformed and strengthened United Nations," he said.

The French president called for enlarging both the permanent and non-permanent members of the UN Security Council to represent "new balances" in the world.

Earlier, speaking to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr Chirac said the war on Iraq had not made the world more secure.

"There's no doubt that there has been an increase in terrorism and one of the origins of that has been the situation in Iraq," he said.

"I'm not at all sure that one can say that the world is safer."