President Jacques Chirac's ill-timed jokes about British cooking came back to bite him on the derriere today as he arrived in Singapore to press Paris's case to host the 2012 Olympics.

The French President found a scrum of reporters and television crews waiting for him as he arrived at the city-state's famous Raffles Hotel a day before the International Olympic Committee chooses between Paris and close rival London.

Unfortunately, no one was interested in M Chirac's views on the Olympic contest. "Did you make disparaging remarks about Britain?" asked one journalist. "Do you like ’rosbif’, Mr President?" shouted another.

The French daily Liberation reported yesterday that M Chirac, unaware that he could be overheard by a small group of journalists, made a string of anti-British jokes while chatting to President Vladimir Putin and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on Monday.

First he quipped that Britain's only contribution to European agriculture had been mad cow disease. Then he added: "You cannot trust people who have such bad cuisine. After Finland, It is the country with the worst cooking."

M Chirac, 72, ignored the shouted questions as he pressed through the throng of journalists at the elegant colonial hotel. "I have come here to support one candidacy," he said. "We are in the Olympic world and that means fair play, that means that the best should win and that is what I want. And naturally I want the best to be Paris."

M Chirac's faux pas came amid a sharp deterioration in Anglo-French relations sparked by the French leader's failure to win popular approval at home for the new EU constitution, followed by Britain's refusal to renegotiate its European Union budget rebate at an EU summit in Brussels.

Tony Blair has been in Singapore since Sunday, wooing IOC members on behalf of the London bid team, which appears to have managed to close the gap with Paris to just a few votes in perhaps the closest IOC bidding contest ever.

Although the Prime Minister has to leave tonight, before the candidate city presentations, M Chirac will not have as much time to appeal to individual IOC members.

The two men are not expected to meet until Wednesday, at the opening of the G8 summit at Gleneagles, near Edinburgh, several hours after the IOC members have chosen between London, Paris, Madrid, New York and Moscow.

At a press conference earlier today, Mr Blair resolutely refused to respond to M Chirac's quips. "Particularly at this moment, if you will forgive me, I don’t want to get tempted down that path," he said with a grin.

Also flying the flag for London in Singapore was David Beckham, the England football captain who was born and bred in the East End area that would host a London Games. Beckham, accompanied by his wife Victoria, promised that London would bring passion and experience and create an "Olympics people remember for years".

Beckham is one of a host of sporting and political celebrities wheeled out by the bid teams, although none could match New York's "secret weapon" - Muhammad Ali, the former heavyweight boxing champion who won Olympic gold as a light heavyweight called Cassius Clay in Rome in 1960.

But Jacques Rogge, the IOC President, who is believed to back the French bid, spoke out against the "celebritisation" of the bidding process and said he would prefer to see sportsmen who had at least taken part in the Games.

"I like to see Olympic champions but I do not think the whole candidature process must be one of glitter and stars," he said.

Although Paris, which has been bidding for the Games for the past two decades, has been the clear bookmakers' favourites throughout the process, its team is well aware that host city favourites often fall at the last hurdle.

Three of the last four votes to choose Summer Games hosts have been won by candidates who were not considered frontrunners - Atlanta beating Athens for 1996, Sydney defeating Beijing for 2000 and Athens edging out Rome for 2008.