Under the Biblical quotation 'Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's', the text talked up Citroen's position as a car sales leader in a bombastic tone.

'It's true, we are leaders, but at Citroen the revolution never stops,' the advertisement said.

The Mao poster is similar to the huge painting of the Great Helmsman gazing out over Beijing's Tiananmen Square, except that it has been distorted to show his lips curled and eyes squinting.

'The image has been wantonly distorted by the ad's designers. Mao looks very strange,' Chinese state newspaper the Global Times observed yesterday.

The scowling Mao had infuriated Chinese Internet users who saw it as a slight, it said.

'As a Chinese, I felt greatly insulted when seeing this ad,' a posting on web portal Tianya (www.tianya.com) said. 'It is not only insulting Chairman Mao, but the whole Chinese nation.'

Citroen has withdrawn the ad and apologised to China in a letter sent to the Chinese paper, the carmaker said.

REUTERS