Europe's public sector film financiers got yet another skewering yesterday at the Triple Agent press conference, which was attended by actress Katerina Didaskalou .

Long-time Eric Rohmer producer Francoise Etchegaray explained that the veteran French director's films are no longer finance-able in his native country.

The Euros 5m indoor thriller had been made without support from France's National Film Centre (CNC) and was refused by other bodies including European cultural broadcaster Arte.

France's Avances-sur-Recettes support scheme for art films also turned down the film and, worried that it was too literary, asked 84 year-old Rohmer for further written statements as to how he intended to bring it to the screen.

"We had to turn to foreign finance to make the film. Thank goodness Rohmer is France's most exported director," said Etchegaray, who finally structured Triple Agent as a five way co-production involving France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Russia.

"The Avances-sur-Recettes should be kept for people like Claude Berri and Jean-Jacques Annaud who really need it," she said with undisguised irony.