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President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has confirmed on Tuesday that the carbon levy would not take effect in the country before it is applied in Europe, reiterating the endless delay of the tax amidst international and domestic pressure.

“The carbon tax won’t be applied in France unless it is a tax upon European borders”, the president told a team of agriculture representatives in his visit to Essonne, a department near the city of Paris.

Sarkozy also noted that it was “not fair” to impose the constraints only upon French people, local news agency reported.

Also on that day, the European Commission voiced its scepticism regarding the carbon levy on the borders of the EU, which the French government has been pushing for.

“A carbon tax on (EU) borders presents a number of considerable drawbacks, which should be remedied”, said the commission in a working document.

To date, Finland, Sweden and Denmark have already been applying the tax. However, a number of other European nations, including the United Kingdom and Germany, were opposing it.

The EU commission has argued that the different methods of taxing carbon emissions throughout EU member states was “problematic” because it could inflict damage to the “efficiency and competitiveness effects in a single market”.

The French government has announced last month to withdraw from the efforts to apply the tax due to the reason that the tax has long been criticised by domestic households and industries.

A proposed carbon tax has been rejected for being unconstitutional, just days before it was due to be enacted.

The tax, which amounted to €17 for each ton of carbon dioxide produced, was rejected due to fear that it would inflate the costs of heating an vehicle fuels with little regard for other sources of emissions.

The rejection of the carbon tax comes as a blow to French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who had strongly supported its introduction in keeping with his current hard line environmental agenda.

The change of plans could also affect his international image after he has worked so hard to push through global cooperation on climate change and yet has not managed to tax emissions in his own country.

However, President Sarkozy said that the tax bill would now be tweaked before being resubmitted to the government next year for approval.

Surprisingly, the U-turn has not been deeply criticised by the country’s Green party, who simply commented that the extra time would allow France to create a carbon taxation system that better addresses all sources of emissions responsible for climate change.

Environmentalists hope that the introduction of financial implications on the creation of the carbon emissions would act as a catalyst for change towards greener industry in France.

But the rejection of the tax comes as welcome news to the many French industry leaders who campaigned against its introduction saying it would make it even harder for them to compete with their European neighbours.