PARIS, May 2: In stark contrast to Britain, which this week publicly announced the reopening of its diplomatic representation in Iraq, France has decided to make its return quietly with a new French charge d’affaires, Antoine Siban, arriving in Baghdad last Monday.

The return of the high-level diplomat — who replaces Andre Janier, the previous charge d’affaires who prided himself on being the last diplomat to remain in Baghdad as US troops were already in the country, was so discretely done that when a reporter from French public TV channel rang the bell at the French chancellery in the Iraqi capital on Thursday, she was told that Mr Siban “had nothing to say, desired, in any case, that nothing be said” about his presence in the embassy.

Testifying early last month before the foreign affairs commission of the French parliament, Mr Janier, the former charge d’affaires, had said that, in his estimation, the situation in Iraq “will worsen considerably before, and if, it gets any better.”

During 90 minutes of testimony, the French envoy “painted a picture of the situation,” said an MP who took part in the closed-doors session, “that is even blacker than the very pessimistic appraisal we’d already received from other diplomats.”

Mr Janier had won the respect of many Iraqis and diplomats around the world, notably in the Middle East, for having refused, “to leave Baghdad before the UN inspectors have to,” thereby becoming one of the very last Western diplomats to leave the Iraqi capital.