In a conference call with analysts and reporters, Aventis chief executive Igor Landau said Sanofi was trying to take advantage of his company's superior "critical mass" to offload its own financial risks.

"They want to buy a life insurance policy almost free of charge," he said. "This is their problem, not our problem."

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Germany's Handelsblatt business daily reported that Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder plans to contact French President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday about the takeover bid.

Schroeder wants to support Aventis' defense, the report said. A government spokesman in Berlin told The Associated Press on customary condition of anonymity that the report was "speculation."

Berlin fears that Aventis' 9,000 staff in Germany would bear the brunt of the layoffs that would likely follow the hostile merger. The company was formed out of a 2000 merger between France's Rhone-Poulenc Rorer and German drug and chemical company Hoechst.

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According to financial daily Les Echos, [Sanofi CEO Jean-François] Dehecq did not seek to rebut a claim by Aventis that the takeover would lead to 10,000-12,000 job cuts.

"And if it was Glaxo, that would be how many?" he was quoted as saying.

Market watchers say GlaxoSmithKline is the most likely candidate for a "white knight" rescue bid for Aventis -- a possibility that the French company itself does not rule out.

"I'm convinced there are a number of other potential combinations that would position us much more strongly ... than a combination with Sanofi," Landau said in the conference call.

Five Japanese have died after taking an arthritis drug produced by pharmaceutical giant Aventis and the company said it has warned doctors against prescribing it to patients with respiratory problems.

It has not been confirmed whether the drug, Arava, caused the deaths, but doctors in two cases believe the medication may have been responsible, said Yota Kikuchi, a spokesman at the Franco-German company’s Tokyo-based subsidiary, Aventis Pharma Japan.