France bought 94 million doses of the vaccine for the A(H1N1) virus at a cost of 869 million euros, almost one and a half for every member of the population.

However, only about five million people have so far been vaccinated since the programme was launched in October.

The government took the decision to sell some of its stock after European medical authorities said a one-off vaccination was enough to protect against the virus.

"We started with a plan for two-dose vaccinations but since one dose is sufficient we can start to re-sell part of the stock," a French health ministry official told press agency AFP.

The ministry said Qatar had already bought 300,000 doses and Egypt was negotiating to buy two million. France is also in discussions with Mexico and Ukraine.

The opposition Socialists' health spokesman Jean-Marie Le Guen  called the government's strategy a "fiasco", saying in a statement that despite its "exaggerated" spending France still had a very low rate of vaccination.

Germany, the Netherlands and some other European countries have also started selling off unwanted stock.

In December, Germany said it was looking to sell off vaccines even though its full order of 50 million doses was not due to be delivered until March. Only about five per cent of the population had been vaccinated there.

Germany reported requests for vaccines from Afghanistan and central European countries including Ukraine.

The Netherlands announced in November that it would sell 19 million of the 34 million vaccines it ordered to countries with a shortage of them, judging that the danger had passed.

Spain's Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez told Sunday's El Pais newspaper that Madrid expected to buy a total of about 13 million doses, down from its earlier estimate of 37 million.

The World Health Organisation (Who) said last month that the A(H1N1) virus was peaking in much of western Europe, as the disease progressed into central Europe and through parts of Asia.

Who said last week that swine flu had killed at least 12,220 people worldwide with the biggest share of victims in the United States and Canada, though it was now declining in North America.