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<p>Lawmakers this week will try to punish France and other nations that tried to thwart the U.S.-led effort to disarm Iraq by canceling current contracts and blocking future ones with companies from those nations.</p> <p>Several lawmakers want President Bush's $74.7 billion emergency spending bill to favor awarding contracts to companies from countries that have joined the coalition against Iraq. The bill, which the House Appropriations Committee begins considering tomorrow, contains $2.45 billion for humanitarian relief and rebuilding Iraq.</p>

US lawmakers seek to end French company's contract By Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON, March 28 (Reuters) - No matter whether it's french toast or french fries they're serving to the Marines, a group of U.S. lawmakers want caterer Sodexho Inc. to stop it -- because its parent company is French. Angry at France's refusal to support the war on Iraq, the lawmakers are urging the military to cancel a contract with Sodexho Inc., the North American unit of France's Sodexho Alliance (EXHO.PA). But one lawmaker, whose Maryland district contains Sodexho Inc.'s headquarters, has launched a counterattack, noting the company employs Americans...

Republican members of the US Congress have asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to boycott a French firm catering for the US Marines. The firm in question, Sodexho, has a $881m contract to feed the Marines. "My colleagues and I abhor the idea of continuing to pour American dollars into a French based firm when those dollars could be feeding our wartime economy," wrote Representative Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican. Mr Kingston wanted the contract to be terminated because that would send "a tangible signal to the French Government that there are economic consequences associated with their international policies". Mr Kingston...