PARIS:France's foreign minister Laurent Fabius says his country held out for firmer conditions in the preliminary agreement on Iran's nuclear program, and remains cautious about its success.

Laurent Fabius acknowledged on Europe-1 radio Friday that the agreement reached between Iran and six world powers is a ''very important'' step.

But he noted that it's only a preliminary move, and ''the end of the road is the end of June,'' the deadline for a comprehensive agreement. The long-awaited accord aims at curbing Iran's nuclear activities and providing sanctions relief.

Fabius said France rejected the original draft as not ''solid enough,'' and the Iranian delegation threatened to leave the talks.

He said France wants a firm deal ''to prevent other countries in the Gulf such as Saudi Arabia from embarking on nuclear proliferation.''WASHINGTON: Even accounting for her outlandish statements in the past, including questioning President Barack Obama's loyalty to the US accusing a Hillary Clinton staffer of being a Islamic extremist mole, and blaming Democrats Presidents for swine flu, former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann went over the top on Tuesday, comparing Obama to the German pilot whose mass murdersuicide has captured the headlines in recent days.

"With his Iran deal, Barack Obama is for the 300 million souls of the United States what Andreas Lubitz was for the 150 souls on the German Wings flight - a deranged pilot flying his entire nation into the rocks," Bachman wrote on her Facebook page this week, adding, for good measure, "After the fact, among the smoldering remains of American cities, the shocked survivors will ask, why did he do it?"

Incendiary rhetoric is nothing new for Bachmann, who was once a presidential candidate aspirant before her political career spluttered when she bowed out of electoral politics after four terms in Congress. But in an already polarized and combustible political milieu in the US over Israel, Iran, and Washington's effort to conclude a nuclear deal, the comments outraged moderate voters all too inured to wacky comments from US politicians, who can leave their Indian counterparts in the dust when it comes to extreme polemics.

"I'd call her an idiot but I don't want to offend idiots!" was among the gentler reactions on social media even as the mainstream press tried hard to ignore the Facebook comment that remained unnoticed and unchallenged several hours after it was posted. "I do not believe I have ever read a more disgusting screed in my entire life," wrote another reader, as her explosive invective filtered out. "Ms. Bachmann trying to score points off of a horrible tragedy? Is she seriously alleging that President Obama is mentally ill? Is she claiming that he is unfit for office because of mental issues?"

Such criticism is not new to Bachmann, who once cottoned on to a misreported story out of India to allege that President Obama's trip to the country cost $200 million a day and he took 2,000 people with him and rented 870 rooms at the Taj Palace Hotel. Another time, she accused Hillary Clinton's aide Huma Abedin of having connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.

In an echo of the toxic rhetoric that permeates India's own political milieu, some of her rants resulted in even the Republican Party leadership, including Senator John McCain and Speaker John Boehner, castigating her and disowning her.

Evidently, going by her latest rant, it has had no effect. She has set a new benchmark for India's own poisonous politicians.