Describing a 115-metre ArcelorMittal steel tower – Orbit - at the Olympics Park in London as fusion of friendship between India and UK, Johnson said, "I say this on a day when I picked up a newspaper and I see sans-culottes appear to have captured the government of Paris and a French Minister has been so eccentric as to call for a massive investor to depart".

Sans-culottes were the radical left-wing urban working class who dominated France during the French Revolution of 1789.

The London Mayor was speaking to Indian industry leaders at a Ficci meeting here seeking investment for world's leading financial centre.

French Industrial Renewal Minister Arnaud Montebourg had reportedly told a French daily, "We do not want ArcelorMittal in France any longer because they do not respect France."

The French minister was also quoted as having stated, " Mittal's lies since 2006 are damning (it) "has never honoured its commitments" to the country.