Insults aimed at British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush were sprayed in red paint over a monument to Britain's dead from World War I and discovered by a gardener last Thursday.

"No words are too strong to express the revulsion caused by such barbaric, monstrous and utterly despicable acts," Donnedieu de Vabres told London's Royal Institute for International Affairs.

The words "Rosbifs (British) go home! Saddam Hussein will win and spill your blood" were painted in French over the base of the cemetery's main monument -- an obelisk topped by a cross. On one side was a swastika and the words "Death to the Yankees."

"This crime was committed in France, but in no any way reflects the true feelings of France," said Donnedieu de Vabres who was France's former Europe minister in the government of prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

"Needless to say, the French government will spare no effort to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice," he said.

"France condemns these acts of vandalism in the strongest terms," said France's War Veterans Minister Hamlaoui Mekachera on Tuesday.

"The international tension only makes more heinous this violation of the memory of combatants who came to liberate our land," he said.

"I have asked the prefectoral authorities to organize a ceremony at the cemetery to which we shall be inviting the British consular authorities and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission," he said.

Later Tuesday, President Jacques Chirac's spokesperson expressed outrage and shock at "the desecration of the graves of soldiers from allied countries who fought for our freedom."

Some 11,000 British dead are buried at Etaples, which lies on the Channel coast around 15 miles (24 kilometres) south of Boulogne. It was the site of several hospitals during the 1914-1918 war.

A judicial enquiry has been opened.

SPACE.WIRE