PARIS, March 4 -- Haunted by volatile financial markets and economic woes, and challenged by security threats, France and its European partners have to join China's efforts to re-build the Silk Road, a former French prime minister said recently.

In an article published by the French business daily, Les Echos, Dominique de Villepin said the Silk Road offered China "a flexible framework to meet the major challenges facing the country," including the globalization of the Asian powerhouse's domestic economy and strengthening the global role of its currency in world trade.

Developing the historic trade route would also benefit re-balancing provinces' development and household consumption as well, he wrote.

The fresh approach to economic development and the proposed diplomatic boost would "fill the void" between Asia and Europe by creating a link between the nations' infrastructure, financial, and communication industries, he added.

"It is an economic vision which adapts Chinese planning to international economic cooperation. In a volatile and unstable financial world, it is necessary to take the right approach to long-term projects using new multilateral tools," the right-wing politician said.

De Villepin argued Chinese business leaders' willingness to cooperate with Europe in technological, administrative and trade sectors offered France and its neighbors opportunities to harness lucrative agreements mainly in the transport sector and urban services.

"It is a task that should mobilize the European Union and its Member States, but also local authorities, chambers of commerce, and businesses, not to mention universities and think tanks," he wrote.

At the diplomatic level, the Silk Road is "a political vision which paves the way to European countries to renew dialogue with partners on the Asian continent which could help to find, for instance, flexible projects between Europe and Russia, in particular to find (the funds) necessary for the stabilization of Ukraine," de Villepin said.

"The thread between the East and West has yet to take hold," the former premier wrote on Sunday.