"I have asked wholesale suppliers, by a ministerial decree, to take these products off sale," Junior Consumer Affairs Minister Marylise Lebranchu said in an interview in the Le Parisien newspaper. Sales of all Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Light, Sprite and Fanta cans manufactured in the northern city of Dunkirk from January this year were suspended. The plant was producing drinks for the Belgian market but French authorities fear some may have been shipped back to France.

Lebranchu said other Coca-Cola products were not affected by the move. The results of tests on the sodas should be known by the end of the week.She said the protective measure had been decided because of "Coca-Cola's inability to provide a clear explanation on the traceability of its products," adding the government was also unconvinced byCoca-Cola's explanation that a strange smell emitted by some of the cans was caused by a fungicide chemical used to treat wooden transport pallets. A fungicide was found on the bottom of soft-drink cans in warehouses in Dunkirk. Consumers have been warned not to drink the sodas concerned until the results of the tests are known.

In Belgium, the government has ordered all products marketed by the Coca-Cola Company to be withdrawn from Belgian stores, Health Minister Luc Van den Bossc said on Monday.

Some Coca-Cola products were taken off the shelves Friday as a precautionary measure after school children in the north of the country became ill. Den Bossche's press service said all products were concerned, regardless of their packaging in plastic, glass bottles or cans. Beverages Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Light, Cherry-Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Sprite Light, Nestea Splash, Nestea, Aquarius, Bon aqua, Kinley tonic, BL and Lift were taken off the shelves.

The press department did not immediately give a reason for theban. The measure followed Friday's move to withdraw all 20-centilitre bottles of Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Light and Fanta produced at Ghent and Wilrijk, and all cans of the same drinks, plus Sprite, from the Dunkirk factory in neighbouring northern France.

On Wednesday Coca-Belgium announced the withdrawal of 2.5 million bottles of regular Coca-Cola after some 30 pupils of a school in northern Belgium, were taken ill after drinking the soda. Several were taken to hospital but tests showed no toxic substances in the drinks they had consumed. The company said drinking the contents would not cause serious health problems But could cause head or stomach pains.

The incident was a further blow to consumer confidence in Belgium, already hit by revelations that some Belgian meat, poultry and dairy products had been contaminated with cancer-causing dioxin, introduced into the food chain through animal feed. As a result bans world-wide have been slapped on some Belgian and European Union food exports.