Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi has signed ten billion euros of trade bills with France during his unprecedented visit to Paris that started Monday.

Libya plans to purchase 21 Airbus planes and 14 Rafale fighter jets, as well as nuclear reactors, French officials announced.

The opposition and a number of intellectuals have criticised the visit of a leader of a country long accused of supporting of terrorism and violating human rights. Ahead of Qaddafi's arrival in Paris police broke up a demonstration of dozens protesters against the visit.

Even a member of Sarkozy's own government, the Deputy Human Rights minister Rama Yade, has expressed concerns about the visit.

"France is not just a trade balance," Yade told the daily Le Parisien, adding that the timing of Qaddafi's visit was "scandalously" poor as he arrived on World Human Rights Day.

After meeting with Qaddafi, President Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters he had insisted to the Colonel that it was necessary to continue to move forward on the path of human rights.

In July, France played an important role in the release of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who spent eight years in Libyan jails because of what human rights organisations say were trumped-up charges.

The circumstances of the release of the medics have previously sowed political controversy in France, where the government is accused of buying the Bulgarians' freedom by offering inducements.

Qaddafi's trip is historic as he has not visited France since 1973, in the early years of his rule over Libya.

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