The distinguished diplomatic career of French ambassador to London Daniel Bernard, a former French government spokesman and a close confidante of French President Jacques Chirac, is believed to be in deep doo-doo after he referred to Israel as a "shitty little country" threatening world peace and stability.

The undiplomatic remarks were made at a private gathering at the London home of Lord Conrad Black, chairman of Hollinger Inc., owner of the Jerusalem Post and the Daily Telegraph. The comment was cited anonymously in a column published on Monday in the Telegraph by Black's wife, Barbara Amiel.

Lest Lady Amiel be accused of any breaches of high-society protocol, her revelation of Monsieur Bernard's scatological excesses was delicate in the extreme. "The ambassador of a major EU country politely told a gathering at my home that the current troubles in the world were all because of 'that shitty little country Israel.'" The ambassador reportedly prattled on: "'Why,' he asked, 'should the world be in danger of World War Three because of those people?'"

Herself a member of "those people," Amiel discreetly did not name the ambassador, but a genteel diarist in the competing Guardian, Matthew Norman, had no such qualms. "The country represented by this Excellency, we are pleased to reveal, is France. But perhaps you guessed that already. Assuming that the ambassador Daniel Bernard isn't recalled to Paris to explain himself, we hope to discuss his approach to the complex matter of Middle Eastern diplomacy later today."

The attribution piqued the French Embassy, which responded to the claim. His Excellency was "surprised," a spokeman for the French embassy huffed to the Guardian, "to read the remarks attributed to him regarding Israel."

The "surprise" made Norman's day, as he squealed with delight in his next Diary entry:

"Was he, forsooth? Not so surprised, however, that he can deny them. But perhaps some succinct textual analysis might help. 'The ambassador was expressing... the view that we were facing a geographically limited problem' - now would that be the "little country" reference? - 'which is proving extremely difficult to resolve' (the "shitty" bit, perhaps?)... Any other interpretation is erroneous and any other historical reference is insulting for the ambassador..."

At the risk of running on a bit in this scatological vein with his Diary (perhaps provoking a case of Diary Ear), the columnist was simply desolée at the thought that he may have offended the sensitive diplomat. "Well, we're absolutely heartbroken if we've upset the poor lamb simply because - and I hope this interpretation isn't too erroneous - the French ambassador is an imbecilic little turd (to adapt from his own lexicon of scatological diplomacy) who ought to be horsewhipped all the way back to the Quai d'Orsay."

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