Writing in her own blog yesterday, Hélène Puel waxed ironical over Malta’s recent tourism initiative.

She wrote: “The United States have their Statue of Liberty, Belgium its own Manneken Pis, and Britain its Horse Guards. And Malta... has Nicolas Sarkozy.

“The French version of the tourism website for Malta, visitmalta.com, has a photo of the President of the (French) Republic with the underlying caption: ‘Do as the President of the Republic has done: come and relax in Malta! Like other celebrities such as José Carréras, Brian Adams, Robert Plant, The Animals, Zucchero and also The Wailers. Come to hear them and come to relax!”

Ms Puel added that “it is unknown if the Led Zeppelin singer and Bob Marley’s group have the same touristic interest as the President of France”.