PRIME Minister Tony Abbott was embroiled in an ugly diplomatic incident in which Australia’s Ambassador to France offered to resign after being told his same-sex partner of 34 years could not greet the prime minister at a Paris airport.

Stephen Brady, a career public servant and diplomat, took offence when he was told his partner Peter Stephens could not take part in the formal greeting of Mr Abbott on the tarmac, and should instead wait in the car.

Mr Brady refused the direction, and Mr Stephens was in the greeting party when Mr Abbott disembarked the RAAF plane at the airport on the evening of April 25.

Mr Brady later offered to resign over the incident, but his resignation was not accepted and he remains in the diplomatic corps.

Mr Brady and Mr Stephens became the world’s first openly acknowledged diplomatic gay couple in 1999 when they were formally introduced to Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II.

The Herald Sun was told a protocol officer was dispatched to convey messages between Mr Abbott’s plane, known as the VIP, and the greeting party waiting on the tarmac at a small Paris airport.

But another source said that rather than the protocol officer going up and down the stairs, the conversations had started while the plane was still in the air.

media_camera Stephen Brady with Peter Stephens.

Sources say there was a discussion between “junior protocol officers’’ about who should greet Mr Abbott.

Protocol dictates that if the PM is travelling with his partner, then the Ambassador’s partner would also greet their arrival.

However Mr Abbott’s wife Margie, who had travelled to Gallipoli, had left the trip in Istanbul and did not go on to Paris.

A protocol officer told Mr Brady that therefore his partner should not meet Mr Abbott and should wait in the car.

Mr Abbott’s spokesman said last night: “The Prime Minister was very happy to be met by Ambassador Brady and his partner when he arrived in Paris last month.’’

The Ambassador hosted drinks the next evening, and later went out to dinner with Mr Abbott, his senior staff and Mr Stephens.

However, he was sufficiently angry about the incident to offer his resignation, although it is not clear that a formal resignation letter was ever tendered to either the Prime Minister or to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.

A former Official Secretary to two Governors-General, Mr Brady was awarded an AO in this year’s Australia Day honours.

He has a lengthy career as an adviser to a number of prime ministers and a senior official with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and has been ambassador to the Netherlands.