Paris  - The French 2008 presidency of the European Union was one of the costliest in history, with the government spending an average of 1 million euros (currently about 1.5 million dollars) a day, the online edition of the daily le Figaro reported Monday.

According to accounting by the government's revenue court, the total cost of President Nicolas Sarkozy's six-month leadership of the EU was 171 million euros, well above the average of 70 to 80 million euros spent by other EU members on their presidencies.

The online daily MediaPart, which first reported the story, said that only Germany's presidency in 2007 was as costly as France's in EU history.

The revenue court said that the high cost was the result of too many events, some of which "were not indispensable."

In its six-month EU presidency, France hosted 489 events, including 328 conferences, 25 inter-ministerial meetings and nine international summits.

The great number of the events "did not contribute to France's success, which was based on two or three events, such as the management of the (financial) crisis or the war in Georgia," the revenue court said.

Symbolic of the presidency's extravagance was the 16.6 million euros spent on the summit meeting of the Union for the Mediterranean in July 2008, which included a dinner for the 43 invited heads of state and government that cost more than 1 million euros.(dpa)