Wining and dining signals warm phase of relationship

When Germans talk about having a fine time, they say they are living wie Gott in Frankreich - like God in France. That's exactly what their new Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, did yesterday when he was wined and dined and courted by the French president and prime minister.

It was not by chance that he made his first visit abroad as chancellor-elect to Paris, Mr Schroder said. "I wanted to show how important Franco-German relations are." The French needed reassuring, because Mr Schroder's campaign talk of a "triangle" involving Bonn, Paris and London upset them. By visiting the French capital only three days after his victory, before he has formed his government and before his investiture by the new Bundestag, he made the French feel special.

The new German chancellor made a dash down to the Rodin museum in Meudon with Mr Lionel Jospin. The two Socialist leaders posed in front of The Thinker, and Mr Schroder recited Rainer Maria Rilke's poem, Autumn, as leaves fell around him. Rilke spent several years in Meudon as assistant to the great French sculptor - an example of the kind of Franco-German cultural co-operation the politicians say they want to encourage.

Both the Paris journey and the side trip to Meudon bore the stamp of Mrs Brigitte Sauzay, Mr Schroder's adviser on France, who accompanied him on the visit. Mrs Sauzay was born in Provence and attended university in Friborg. She began her career interpreting for President Georges Pompidou and Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1970, then worked for Presidents Giscard and Mitterrand, graduating to the rank of adviser to the latter. That a French woman should become a high-ranking assistant to a German chancellor prefigures the Europeanisation of politics, she says.

Mrs Sauzay has written two books saying that while French and German politicians have preserved the "Franco-German marriage" since de Gaulle and Adenauer signed the Elysee Treaty in 1962, their populations do not particularly like or know one another. Comparatively few learn each other's language or travel to each other's country. "Contacts in civil society have hardly developed," she said.

The French have a latent reticence towards Germany, an atavistic memory of the invasions of 1870, 1914 and 1940. Paris's past reluctance to see Germany reunited was perhaps best expressed by the writer, Francois Mauriac, who remarked acidly, "I like Germany so much that I'm delighted there should be two of them."

But yesterday there was no reticence on the part of Messieurs Chirac and Jospin. Since last Sunday's election, the two French leaders have engaged in what Le Monde called "the battle of the communiques", each trying to outdo the other with congratulations and professions of friendship. At the threshold of the Elysee, it seemed the French president would never let go of Mr Schroder's hand, and he kept the new chancellor half an hour longer than scheduled. At Matignon, Mr Jospin, too, prolonged his discussions.

Because Messieurs Jospin and Schroder are from what the latter called the same "political family", Mr Chirac fears the traditional focus of Franco-German relations could shift from the president's office to the prime minister's. So on his journey of reassurance, Mr Schroder twice praised Mr Chirac.

When a journalist asked what he thought of Mr Chirac, Mr Schroder got the biggest laugh of the day. "Usually it's not said that I am particularly sensitive to the character of men," he said, alluding to his reputation as a ladies' man. "But I found him very open to discussion, very well in formed . . . and very well dressed, too."

The French and German leaders announced they have established working groups on Agenda 2000 negotiations, the CAP, and European institutional reform and enlargement. They hope to reach a common approach before the EU Vienna summit in December.