Cameron (left) and Sarkozy in London on Friday. (AFP)

London, March 14: David Cameron has angered the French government by apparently mocking the diminutive height of Nicolas Sarkozy.

The Conservative leader is said to have made a remark about “hidden dwarfs” whilst discussing a photograph of himself and Sarkozy, who is seven inches shorter than him.

The disclosure came after it emerged that George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, also made a quip about the French President’s stature.

Sarkozy, who is 5ft 5in, is understood to have complained to the UK government after Osborne made a show of removing a stool from behind the lectern at which he was about to speak and joked it was the “Sarkozy box”.

The jokes, made within three days of each other, led to French officials approaching their British counterparts about it, according to a claim made on BBC 2’s Newsnight.

They claimed that Osborne and Cameron had “failed to show sufficient respect” for the French head of state, who is notoriously sensitive about his height.

The dwarf comment was said to have been made when Cameron gave a newspaper interview in his Commons office. The article described framed photographs on Cameron’s desk, two featuring him with Barack Obama. It read: “...and one with Nicolas Sarkozy that prompts a joke about ‘hidden dwarfs’.”