French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown vowed to boost cooperation on the economy and immigration today as Mr Sarkozy began his UK visit aimed at improving awkward ties.
Mr Sarkozy, speaking of "Franco-British brotherhood", said he would ask Mr Brown's help in getting Washington to halt a plunging dollar, which is making European exports more expensive. Britain has typically shunned managing foreign exchange levels, saying markets are the best guide.
Mr Brown, who will hold talks with Mr Sarkozy today, said a new era was dawning for the "entente cordiale" - a treaty signed by the two countries more than a century ago - in which Britain and France would speak as one on international economic reform.
The two neighbours, though bound together by mainstream European institutions like the European Union and NATO, have a love-hate relationship of deep mutual suspicion going back centuries.
But in an increasingly global world their economies now overlap in every sphere.
The French president, accompanied by his new wife, former model Carla Bruni, will stay with Queen Elizabeth, address parliament and meet Mr Brown as he seeks to build a stronger alliance with Britain during a two-day state visit.
"I want a new Franco-British brotherhood," Mr Sarkozy told the BBC in an interview, sketching a vision of far-reaching cooperation on the economy and defence that goes beyond anything Britain is envisaging. "Why don't we pool our arms industries so that we spend less money and be more effective?" Mr Sarkozy said.
"Couldn't we better define an immigration policy? ... On the economy, couldn't we try and get the Americans to agree to do something about their dollar?"
"Often it is our differences that are underlined and underscored ... but we enjoy the same music, we like reading the same authors, we have the same enemies throughout the world, we have the same aspiration," Mr Sarkozy said.
Mr Sarkozy was welcomed by Queen Elizabeth with a state carriage procession to Windsor Castle near London. It is the first state visit by a French president since Jacques Chirac came in 1996.