PARIS (AFP) - France's suspended National Technical Director (DTN) Francois Blaquart told AFP on Saturday that a controversial plan to introduce a quota for dual-nationality players had been "abandoned".

"We abandoned this idea of a percentage (of dual-nationality players), but we asked ourselves to be vigilant about players' motivations," Blaquart said.

"We have 45 percent of players in our national sides (including junior teams) who have a possibility of leaving us.

"We think it's a lot. We want to reduce it. It's a problem in the management of the squad. When you see that in one generation between 10 and 30 percent of the players aged 18 to 21 could leave us, it's a problem.

"We envisaged limiting this situation to avoid putting ourselves in danger, but as soon as it stopped being a good solution, we eliminated it."

Blaquart, responsible for youth coaching policy in France, was suspended after website Mediapart published a transcript of a meeting in which several high-ranking officials—including national team coach Laurent Blanc—discussed introducing quotas for players with dual nationalities.

His suspension was announced on Saturday by French Sports Minister Chantal Jouanno and Blaquart's employers, the French Football Federation (FFF), who have launched an inquiry into the affair.

On Thursday evening Mediapart released extracts from the meeting in November last year before publishing a full transcript on Saturday.

The website claimed: "For the top brass in French football, the issue is settled: there are too many blacks, too many Arabs and not enough white players in French football."

The story has sent shockwaves through French football, which has long been sensitive about the ethnic make-up of its national side.

Blanc defended himself on Friday, insisting that he had "never heard mention of such a project," but Blaquart confirmed that the transcript released by Mediapart was genuine.

"All the words reported remain true," he said.

"Some of the words may be shocking. There was some clumsiness, but it was in a passionate internal discussion. Apart from that, there is nothing harmful."

In the transcript published on Saturday, Blaquart says that he would be in favour of "a kind of quota" on dual-nationality players entering French youth training centres.

A number of players have come through French academies in recent years, and represented France at youth level, only to switch allegiances to the senior sides of different countries.

They include Marouane Chamakh (Morocco), Sebastien Bassong (Cameroon), Moussa Sow (Senegal), Younes Belhanda (Morocco) and Ryad Boudebouz (Algeria).