FRANCE: President Jacques Chirac greeted the new German Chancellor Angela Merkel with a kiss on the hand on the steps of the Élysée Palace.
Dr Merkel "looked a little intimidated, and delighted", the Agence France Presse reported. After their two-hour meeting, Mr Chirac said he had given Dr Merkel "the most affectionate of welcomes".
But despite the ostentatious signs of friendship, the advent of a new, liberal and Atlanticist chancellor in Germany has created anxiety here. French leaders were afraid Dr Merkel would pay her first visit abroad to London rather than Paris. She could have justified it by the fact that Prime Minister Tony Blair is currently the president of the European Council.
So there was relief in Paris when Dr Merkel, like Gerhard Schröder and Helmut Kohl before her, reserved her first visit for the Élysée. But it was soon replaced by the realisation that Paris was only one stop in a rushed, day-long marathon that also included the president of the European Commission, the head of Nato and the Belgian prime minister. Perhaps she will have more time to talk to Mr Blair today? Dr Merkel's busy schedule seemed to signal a re-ordering of German priorities. European integration and the Atlantic Alliance - not the "Franco-German engine" are expected to be the focus of her foreign policy. Her government programme says that Europe must be "not a counter-weight but a partner" to the United States.
Dr Merkel is intelligent enough to recognise the importance of the Franco-German relationship, but she brings little passion to it. Like the rest of Europe, she is waiting to see who will win the French presidential election in 2007.
She has far more in common with Nicolas Sarkozy, the right-wing interior minister who hopes to succeed Mr Chirac, than with the French head of state.
Mr Sarkozy and Dr Merkel address each other with the familiar "tu" - not something that comes easily to the stiff chancellor - and he has several times been warmly welcomed in Germany by her CDU/CSU party.
At their joint press conference, Mr Chirac and Dr Merkel appeared to be on different wave-lengths. The French president emphasised the unique nature of the Franco-German relationship. "At the origin, the European Union was conceived of" to bring them together, he said. To function well, Europe needed "a truly solid Franco-German axis". If they didn't get along, Europe would be "like an old car with a broken part".
Mr Chirac said he and Dr Merkel had "a shared vision of Europe" which included "a political and social Europe . . . founded on solidarity, common policies and a permanent effort at harmonising these common policies."
Though she spoke of her conviction that "a good Franco-German relationship" was "necessary and useful for Europe", Dr Merkel did not echo Mr Chirac's vision. On the contrary, she spoke of the Lisbon strategy - seen here as a liberal economic agenda - and of responsibilities towards Europe's new member states. France was reticent about last year's "big bang" enlargement to the east, in part because it was seen to strengthen German power and influence.
After a difficult start with Gerhard Schröder in 1998, Mr Chirac forged a genuine friendship with the outgoing chancellor, sealed by their joint opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2003, they celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Franco-German friendship treaty so lavishly that other European countries felt left out.
Dr Merkel has often said the Franco-German relationship must not exclude others. And although she said yesterday she would not change Germany's policy on Iraq, she opposed what she called the "Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis" against the war.