The president, chatting to the German and Russian leaders in a Russian cafe, said: "The only thing [the British] have ever given European farming is mad cow." Then, like generations of French people before him, he also poked fun at British cuisine.
"You can't trust people who cook as badly as that," he said. "After Finland, it's the country with the worst food."
"But what about hamburgers?" said Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, referring to America.
"Oh no, hamburgers are nothing in comparison," Mr Chirac said.
Mr Putin and Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, laughed. Mr Chirac then recalled how George Robertson, the former Nato secretary general and a former defence secretary in Tony Blair's Cabinet, had once made him try an "unappetising" Scottish dish, apparently meaning haggis.
"That's where our problems with Nato come from," he said.
Mr Schröder and Mr Putin laughed again.
British chefs were less restrained. "Bollocks," said Antony Worrall Thompson. "Chirac doesn't get out enough.
"Our beef is the best in the world ... All the langoustines they eat are Scottish. So I'd serve him langoustines followed by good Aberdeen Angus beef and then give him a heart attack with some sticky toffee pudding."
Meanwhile Egon Ronay, the food critic, said: "A man full of bile is not fit to pronounce on food."
