Jamie Oliver has launched an extraordinary attack on the British - portraying them as more interested in getting drunk than eating well.

The 33-year-old celebrity chef criticised what he called 'the new poverty' blighting the UK - pointing to his fellow countrymen's obsession with widescreen TVs, cars, mobile phones and, above all, beer.

Oliver, who made his name presenting The Naked Chef in the late 90s, berated the loss of British cooking traditions and the widespread binge-drinking culture.

Jamie Oliver has slammed 'uncivilised' Britons for their drinking habits which, he claims, they put above eating good food

In an interview in the latest edition of Paris Match magazine, he claimed he found a better range of food in African slums than in his home country, where he said people were more interested in getting 'drunk in pubs'.

Commenting on the fact that most Britons do not even sit round a table for dinner, Oliver said: 'It's true in the centre of London and in the big northern cities. It's linked to the new poverty.

'It's nothing to do with famine or war --quite the opposite. England is one of the richest countries in the world.

'The people I'm telling you about have huge TV sets - a lot bigger than mine!

They have state-of-the-art mobile phones, cars, and they go and get drunk in pubs at the weekend. Their poverty shows in the way they feed themselves.'

Asked by French interviewer Mariana Grepinet how British cuisine compared with French cuisine, Oliver said: 'In the past British cuisine was similar to Italian cuisine nowadays, without the pasta and risotto. Steam cooking, grilled meat, herbs, spices. We used to cook fabulous dishes. It's all in the past!

'Unlike French people, and I regret it, we lost our traditions. In gastronomy, the world evolves and changes. And right in front of us, isolated from everything, you have France where nothing changes.'

Significantly perhaps, Oliver is hoping to have a TV show in France. Asked what his links were with the country, he admitted: 'I don't have many. But I would like to shoot a TV programme soon.'

The interview follows a joke made to an Edinburgh TV festival audience last week, in which he controversially remarked that only German viewers had complained about the 'gassing' of chicks in his last TV show. The comment was widely interpreted as a reference to the Holocaust.