(Bloomberg) -- French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire waded into treacherous diplomatic territory by declaring he’d hesitate to fly on a Boeing Co. aircraft because he values his life.

“I now prefer flying in Airbus over Boeing — my family too, they care about me,” Le Maire said at the Europe 2024 conference in Berlin on Tuesday, addressing Airbus SE Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Faury, who was in the audience.

Le Maire made the off-the-cuff comment as he lamented what’s holding back Europe, saying the region has become a “gigantic machine that produces norms.” He singled out Airbus as a positive contrast, congratulating Faury for “still producing by far the best planes.” 

“I prefer the situation of Airbus to Boeing’s,” Le Maire said. The French state is Airbus’s biggest single shareholder, with a stake of about 10.8%, just ahead of Germany.

Boeing had no immediate response to Le Maire’s comments, which drew laughter and applause from the audience.

Le Maire’s polemic breaks with an unwritten rule in civil aviation, whereby one manufacturer doesn’t publicly take pleasure in the other side’s misfortunes. Faury was quick to set the record straight when he spoke at the same event after Le Maire, saying he’s “not happy with the problems of my competitor” and reiterating that Boeing’s troubles are a reminder for all to remain humble.

“Aviation attracts a lot of attention on safety,” Faury said. “What I take is humility, not complacency.”

Boeing has been in crisis mode since an almost-new aircraft lost a large fuselage panel during flight on Jan. 5. While nobody was seriously hurt in the accident, the blowout has put the US manufacturer in the spotlight of regulators, government officials and the flying public, with some passengers increasingly nervous about boarding a Boeing 737 Max airliner. 

The Federal Aviation Administration has given Boeing a three-month deadline to show it has fixed its manufacturing processes after it failed some factory audits initiated by the regulator in the wake of the accident.

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