WASHINGTON—Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s “political trouble” in Canada was the reason he won an exclusive invitation from France to attend last year’s D-Day commemoration, a secret U.S. diplomatic document reveals.

Harper, together with then-British prime minister Gordon Brown, were singled out as “exceptional cases” by France because both “were in such political trouble at home that the survival of their governments was at stake,” the U.S. embassy reported in its dispatch to Washington

The document, part of Tuesday’s release of ongoing WikiLeaks disclosures, recounts a meeting between Jean-David Levitte, a key foreign adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy. and an American counterpart in the run-up to the June 6, 2009, commemorations marking the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

Levitte apologized for the French decision not to invite the Germans to the ceremony, the cable says, explaining that European diplomatic protocol would then require invitations be extended to the leaders of Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic as well.

But exceptions were made for Harper and Brown in an apparent French bid to bolster their images at home, the cable says.

• President Barack Obama’s diplomats were rattled when the controversial private security company Blackwater decided to expand by going into the pirate-hunting business, newly disclosed cables show.

Just weeks after Obama’s inauguration, U.S. Ambassador to Dijbouti James Swan sent a message seeking guidance from Washington on “the appropriate level of engagement with Blackwater,” which was poised to go after Somali pirates on the high seas in aboard the McArthur a retooled 60-metre oceanographic vessel kitted with 50-calibre machineguns.

The cable said, “Blackwater does not intend to take any pirates into custody, but will use lethal force against pirates if necessary.”

Ultimately, Blackwater’s bid for pirate-chasing contracts collapsed for lack of clients. The North Carolina-based firm, since renamed Xe Services, continues to provide services to the U.S. government, including the protection of CIA bases in Afghanistan.

• Sarkozy is granted “a zone of monarch-like impunity” by his closest advisers, who often fear providing him with honest counsel, according to leaked cables from the U.S. embassy in Paris.

In one instance, Sarkozy’s handlers rerouted his incoming plane so that the president would not notice the Eiffel Tower had been lit with the ceremonial colours of Turkey, whose potential entry into the European Union Sarkozy staunchly opposes, U.S. Ambassador Charles Rivkin wrote.

Rivkin’s messages portray Sarkozy as an exceptionally strong ally to the U.S. but one who is “mercurial,” “impulsive” and high-maintenance. Periodic intervention by President Barack Obama, the ambassador advised, would help to “reassure Sarkozy of our commitment as an ally and partner and, in many cases, to close the deal.”

• The U.S. State Department severed its most sensitive database from another restricted government information system, officials in Washington said. The move, made within the last week, was taken to further safeguard as yet unexposed cables showing the inner workings of U.S. diplomacy.

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