A French foreign ministry spokesman said the diplomatic incident in which French President Nicolas Sarkozy was reported as having called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "liar" in talks with US President Barack Obama last week at the G20 in Cannes, was "hype."
"I've heard about the hype.... I don't want to talk about it. It's hype," Bernard Valero said, telling journalists to ask Sarkozy's office to confirm the remarks.
"Ask the Elysee (the presidential palace) to confirm or deny" the reported quotes, Valero said.
"All this is getting us away from what's essential. All we want is to keep working so that things move forward because things aren't moving forward" on the Middle East, he said.
The private conversation between Sarkozy and Obama was overheard by a number of journalists after it was inadvertently transmitted over a system used for translation, media website Arret sur Images reported.
Journalists were able to hear the conversation after they were given translation devices for a press conference but told they would receive headphones later, the website reported.
Plugging their own headphones into the devices, they realised they could hear the French translation of the conversation between the two leaders.
"I can't stand him anymore, he's a liar," Sarkozy said in French during the talks.
"You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day," Obama replied in comments that were translated into French.
The website said Obama had also chastised Sarkozy for not having informed the United States of France's plans to vote in favour of Palestinian membership in UN cultural agency UNESCO.
French officials have been increasingly critical of Netanyahu's ongoing settlement building, saying such moves prevent the resumption of peace talks.
The story of the remarks was carried on the websites of most major Israeli dailies.
Netanyahu's office had no immediate reaction to the report and the foreign ministry refused to comment.
Israel public radio correspondent Gideon Kutz, who covered the Cannes summit, said journalists who overheard the private conversation had agreed not to report the story due to "correctness and in order not to embarrass the presidential press service."
Speaking to parliament on Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe insisted that France and Sarkozy had a balanced position on the Middle East conflict, but he did not mention the undiplomatic incident in Cannes.
"We have a balanced position," Juppe said during a discussion of his ministry's budget for 2012.
"In his speech at the United Nations General Assembly the president said very clearly that if Israel's security was in question, we would be on Israel's side," Juppe said.
"But he also said that after so many decades it was no longer possible to accept that the Palestinian Authority is not little by little being recognized as a state.
"We were the only ones to put an alternative on the table to the current impasse with the passage at the General Assembly (of a resolution) that would allow Palestine to have observer status."
France confirmed last week that it would abstain from a Security Council vote on full Palestinian membership of the United Nations, calling instead for Palestine to be given non-member observer status.
White House press secretary Jay Carney declined to comment on the conversation when asked by reporters traveling with Obama to an event in Philadelphia.
Obama's apparent failure to defend Netanyahu is likely to be leapt on by his Republican foes, who are looking to unseat him in next year's presidential election and have portrayed him as hostile to Israel, Washington's closest ally in the region.
Pushing Netanyahu risks alienating Israel's strong base of support among the US public and in Congress.