PRESIDENT Jacques Chirac of France poured on the charm yesterday in an appeal to Britain to sign on to the great undertaking" of a single European currency, but Tory Euro sceptics were left cold.
Addressing both houses of parliament on the second day of a four day state visit, Mr Chirac pleaded with Britain not to exercise its right to opt out of a single currency.
"I'm sure when the time comes, that you will look to the disadvantages, but that you will also see the advantages" of a single currency, Mr Chirac said.
"France wants you to take part in this great undertaking."
A Europe wide currency - "an ambitious plan, rich with promise" - was destined, he added, to become one of the world's "major international currencies".
The Prime Minister, Mr John Major, facing general elections in a year or less, has been at pains to keep the Conservative Party from splitting apart over the issue.
Mr John Redwood, the right wing Tory Euro sceptic who challenged Mr Major for the party leadership last year, rejected Mr Chirac's plea for greater European integration and said Britain should move in the opposite direction.
"The French political elite are strongly committed to merging most of their top government institutions with the Germans and they would find it reassuring "if Britain joined in the merger as well," he said.
"But I don't think it is in Britfain's interest. I think Britain's role is to try and stop them doing it. .. I think we must use our veto and our powers of persuasion..."
"Chirac is obviously trying to entice us into this mad enterprise", said a fellow Euro sceptic, Mr Teddy Taylor.
Mr Chirac was given a long and respectful ovation by the peers and MPs. The only light moment of the session came when the House of Commons speaker, Mrs Betty Boothroyd, thanking Mr Chirac for his words, informed the French President that he was not, as he may have thought, the average Briton's idea of "the greatest living Frenchman". That honour, Mrs Boothroyd told a grinning, chuckling Mr Chirac, was reserved for Eric Cantona, the Manchester United star who scored the only goal in the English Cup final against Liverpool last Saturday.
The French President repeated to the parliamentarians the pledge he made after meeting Mr Major earlier yesterday, that France supported Britain in securing a partial lifting of the EU boycott of British beef.
Mr Chirac said a partial relaxing of the ban would have been a first step in the right direction" in the name of "European solidarity".
Asked by reporters why, after having eaten British beef at Buckingham Palace the previous day, he would not call on the rest of Europe to eat it as well, Mr Chirac conceded it was "a major issue, and it is irrational.
"There is a fear of disease, serious illness, and it is very difficult to overcome that", he said.
"I think the British government has done everything to convince the Commission and the EU of the need to have a plan which in the long term and without risk restores faith in beef", Mr Chirac said.
. The head of Germany's armed forces told France yesterday bilateral relations could suffer if Paris were to withdraw military units from Germany as part of a major policy overhaul.
"If French units based in Germany were disbanded, it could complicate our future relations", Gen Hartmut Bagger told a special committee of the French National Assembly.
"Our co operation will not be made any easier by such moves, much to the contrary," he said.
He called on Paris to keep in Germany at least the Franco German Brigade and the logistics brigade of the multinational Eurocorps to which France and Germany are the main contributors.
The French cabinet, moving to abolish conscription and set up an all professional army, approved drastic cuts in the defence budget on Monday. All French units now based in Germany are conscript based.