Chirac apologises for desecration

President Jacques Chirac apologised to the Queen for the desecration of a British war cemetery on the Channel coast.

He said saying the French had not forgotten the debt they owe British soldiers who died liberating their country.

In a letter to the Queen, Chirac described the scrawling of anti-war graffiti on monuments at a First World War cemetery in Etaples, near Calais, as "inadmissible and shameful."

Chirac also said French people's thoughts were with British soldiers currently fighting in Iraq.

"From the French people and from me personally, I offer you my deepest regrets," Chirac wrote.

Last week, vandals spray-painted anti-war slogans and insults against Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George Bush at the Etaples cemetery. It contains the remains of 11,000 British and other allied soldiers.

"Dig up your rubbish, it's contaminating our soil," read one insult painted in red at the base of a cenotaph. The graffiti was discovered by British tourists, who took photos of it.

France has been an outspoken opponent of the war in Iraq, while the British government has joined the United States in military action. Polls show 80% of French also oppose the war.

Every year, about two million people tour war cemeteries in northern France, where farmers still find the bones of those who perished in the carnage of the Western Front.

Teams of gardeners visit each Commonwealth war cemetery once a week to plant flowers, spray headstones to keep them clean and shiny and replace damaged grave markers. France's Secretary of State for Veterans Affairs Hamlaoui Mekachera was travelling to Etaples today for a wreath-laying ceremony of remembrance, accompanied by representatives of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which looks after the graves.

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