With a key meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) just weeks away, the French government was trying to muster support from other European Union countries at a meeting of EU agriculture ministers, the officials said.
Last week, France failed to persuade EU foreign ministers to tie the hands of EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson in the talks aimed at paving the way for a deal at the WTO's mid-December meeting in Hong Kong.
A new French document being circulated among the farm ministers on Tuesday reiterated Paris' position that the EU should not make any more offers to leading trading partners such as the United States.
"It says 'do not go any further than now on market access'," said one of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Ministers were discussing the document, the officials said.
France, the staunchest defender of Europe's subsidies for farmers and high tariffs on agricultural imports, has accused Mandelson of exceeding his mandate in pre-Hong Kong negotiations with the United States, Australia, Brazil and India.
Mandelson says he has respected the mandate and on Monday he said the EU had to move further on cutting farm import tariffs in order to unlock the WTO impasse.