Naked Man Surfaces in French Mail Order Catalogue Photo

(AFP) - One of France's best-known mail order catalogues apologized Wednesday after web users noticed a naked man in the background of an advertising photo published in the children's section of its website.

The photo, showing four young children with their arms around each other running on the beach while a naked man walks serenely through the sea behind them, was removed from the site but has since gone viral on the internet.

"La Redoute has withdrawn the photo in question from its website, it has posted apologies on Facebook and Twitter," said a spokeswoman.

"An internal inquiry has also been opened to determine how the error happened."

Comments on La Redoute's Facebook page ranged from "to err is human" to accusations of "a marketing coup by La Redoute's web team ahead of the winter sales."

Web users, meanwhile, used the site's magnifying glass function to extract a high-resolution image of the unknown man and paste it into a variety of inventive collages now making the rounds of the internet.

The naked man can be seen alongside a holidaying President Nicolas Sarkozy, behind the first men on the Moon, fighting Darth Vader and wearing the face of scandal-hit former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

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