THE BBC covered up comments from Boris Johnson calling French officials “turds” following secret negotiations with the Foreign Office, according to a new report.

The Daily Mail claim footage of the Tory leadership frontrunner making the remark was cut from a documentary about the Foreign Office filmed during his time as foreign secretary.

The Foreign Office is said to have lobbied for the clip to be axed, claiming it could make relations between London and Paris “awkward”.

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Officials were also concerned about footage in which Johnson said the French were “shafting Britain” amid fears of an angry backlash from Emmanuel Macron at a time when they were trying to win concessions in Brexit negotiations.

According to a Whitehall memo seen by the Daily Mail, the BBC were initially intent on broadcasting the “French turd” comment on the basis that it was an accurate and fair portrayal of Johnson at work.

Broadcast bosses relented, however, after the Foreign Office argued the remarks could cause “significant damage” to the UK and went against the Government’s aims in agreeing to the documentary – namely, to “promote Global Britain to a UK audience”.

Asked at Tory leadership hustings if he had made the comments, Johnson said he had "no recollection" of doing so, adding that the story, said to be based on information from the Foreign Office, was not "very well sourced".

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Ultimately, the BBC removed the “French turds” clip but kept the “shafted” comment in the three-part, fly-on-the-wall documentary, which was aired in November.

The leaked memo, dated November 13, reads: “We negotiated the removal of one potentially awkward moment where the former foreign secretary calls the French ‘turds’ so as not to distract from the rest of the programme.”

A BBC spokesman said: “The programme set out to reflect the realities of life inside the Foreign Office, the production team made judgements about what was in the programme and they are satisfied that the programme achieves its ambitions and has the content they wanted.”

After resigning as foreign secretary, Johnson told Theresa May attempting to gain further concessions for her withdrawal agreement was like “polishing a turd”.