Emmanuel Macron's dog Nemo interrupts meeting to relieve himself against Élysée Palace fireplace

If the French government is ever investigating a leak at the Élysée Palace, it may simply have to take a look at the presidential home's four-legged resident, Nemo. French President Emmanuel Macron's dog was caught on camera interrupting a meeting, to relieve himself against an ornate fireplace.

French TV station TF1 captured the footage over the weekend while recording a meeting between Macron and his junior ministers regarding inner-city investment. Unable to do anything to stop the dog, the group simply sat waiting till Nemo finished his business, before they broke out laughing.

"I wondered what that noise was," Junior Minister for Ecology, Brune Poirson, who was interrupted by the incident, said.

Junior Minister of Territorial Cohesion, Julien Denormandie, asked if this kind of thing happened often, to which Macron laughed and replied, "You have sparked a totally unusual behaviour in my dog."

The president and his wife Brigitte adopted the two-year-old black Labrador-Griffon cross earlier this year from an animal rescue centre. According to the BBC, he was named after a favourite literary character of Macron's, Captain Nemo, who commands the submarine Nautilus in the Jules Verne classic Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea.

Despite being the first presidential pet to come from such 'humble' beginings, Nemo seems to have picked up on the protocol and is following in the footsteps of his predecessors when it comes to causing trouble at the Élysée.

According to Mediapart, former president Nicolas Sarkozy's dogs cost the government thousands of euros after they caused massive damage to the historic furniture in the presidential home.