Six French supermarket chains on Sunday followed the lead of British retailers by withdrawing lasagne and other frozen meals after tests showed dishes sold as pure beef contained horse meat.
Auchan, Casino, Carrefour, Cora, Monoprix and Picard supermarkets have all withdrawn lasagne and other frozen meals containing ground meat that were supplied either by Findus or Comigel, France Info radio reported.
Comigel, a French company, makes meals sold under the Findus brand or under supermarkets' own labels.
Comigel said it bought the meat in good faith from French supplier Spanghero. Spanghero said it was led to believe the meat was beef by its Romanian supplier.
Findus, Comigel and Spanghero have all rejected the blame and threatened legal action against their suppliers.
The head of Comigel, Erick Lehagre, said Sunday the company had been "fooled" and would seek compensation.
"We were victims and it's clear now that the problem was neither with Findus nor with Comigel," Lehagre told Agence France-Presse.
Findus' French subsidiary said Saturday it too had been duped.
"We have been deceived. There are two victims in this affair: Findus and the consumer," the managing director of Findus France, Matthieu Lambeaux, said in a statement, announcing plans to file a complaint on Monday.
Meanwhile, British Environment Secretary Owen Paterson said Sunday that European Union rules did not allow a ban on importing meat, but it could be brought in if beef containing horse meat was found to be a health risk.
The Food Standards Agency has said there is no evidence pointing to horse meat being a food safety risk. But it has ordered tests for the veterinary drug phenylbutazone. Animals treated with "bute" are not allowed to enter the food chain, Britain's Press Association
reported.
The test results are expected on Friday.
Paterson on Saturday warned that an "international criminal conspiracy" could be behind the deepening horse meat scandal.
The scandal began in Britain, where consumers were scandalized to discover they had been eating horse meat instead of beef. Eating horse is considered taboo in Britain. Tests showed some of the frozen meals contained up to 100 per cent horse meat.
British supermarket chains Tesco and Aldi have already withdrawn meals.
The reaction in France, where horse meat is widely available as a cheap, leaner alternative to beef, has been more sanguine.
French authorities are investigating whether the meal producers deliberately misled consumers, Consumer Affairs Minister Benoit Hamon told Le Parisien daily.