Rue de Bercy could hardly be a starker contrast to the regal splendour, the gilt and tapestries of the Quai d'Orsay or the Elysee. France's Finance Ministry on the edge of the Seine is huge, all white concrete and dark glass - modernity and forward thinking epitomised. Its Foreign Ministry and Presidential office are about history, former glories to be conjured up in awe by the visitor.

And so, as it began its EU Presidency, a group of visiting Brussels-based journalists were given the full treatment, the old and the new, as France wheeled us round key ministers to set out its programme for the six months.

The affable Finance Minister Mr Laurent Fabius received us in Rue De Bercy and he has as full a programme as any of them. And was extremely voluble about it.

But, unfortunately, I can't tell you what he said. For reasons too Gallic to be comprehensible, the largely uncontroversial comments of our hosts were completement off, seulement background non-attribuable, the journalistic equivalent of taking gastronomes to a four-star restaurant but telling them the food may only be looked at.

And so, if the Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, had responded laughingly to this correspondent's announcement of his Irish nationality with "such a rich, rich country, and such a generous corporate tax regime", I could not tell you about it. Not a word.

I can tell you, however, what "Paris" and "French sources" believe. Compris.

For a start, Mr Euro is stillborn. The idea floated unofficially in the French media that the euro-11 (soon to be euro-12) group needed a permanent public face, the economic counterpart to the Union's Mr Common Foreign and Security Policy, Mr Javier Solana, had never really been a runner with several member-states who cherish their role in the chair of such meetings.

But Paris is determined to enhance the role of the euro-11 and its visibility as a political counterweight to the purely monetarist considerations of the ECB. An initiative by Mr Fabius on the issue is expected.

He is constrained, however, by the agreement between heads of state made at the Luxembourg summit in 1997 that rules out any decision-making role for the group which must defer to the full Ecofin Council.

So the French initiative is likely to be largely cosmetic - more time set aside for meetings, a more formalised agenda, better preparation, as well as the possibility of such technological innovations as video-conferencing with the ECB.

French sources cite the example of the euro-11 as a precursor to and justification for the constitutional innovation of "reinforced co-operation" under discussion in the ongoing treaty-changing Inter-Governmental Conference.

But they reject the idea of incorporating the procedures of reinforced co-operation, with its qualified majority voting, into the euro-11. A move away from consensus working would be likely to discourage further accessions to the euro, most notably from London.

Intensification of economic co-ordination is a key priority, however. Paris wants to see the EU's annual Broad Economic Guidelines sharpened and a better blend of economic and employment priorities.

And although the Feira summit reached a broad political agreement on the taxation of non-resident savings accounts, the French will have to put flesh on the detailed legislation. Preliminary contacts have already taken place with Switzerland to persuade it to collaborate in information exchanges about non-resident accounts, a key prerequisite for implementation of the final deal.

The French will also seek to relaunch work on the code of conduct on unfair competition in corporate taxation whose progress had been hamstrung because its fate was tied to the savings directive.

Ministers will have to decide eventually on what to do about a wide range of tax regimes said not to comply with the code. Ireland's agreement with the Commission on its own harmonised rate should allow it to avoid much of the heat.

The French Presidency is also determined to amplify the conclusions of the e-commerce summit at Lisbon with a social dimension, an action plan for the Union for the next five years. But this is likely to focus less on legislation and more on setting common targets through bench marking and hence to avoid a major clash with the more liberal minded, such as the British.

A high-level specialist group is at work on a programme for reforming the regulation of the EU's financial markets but Paris is not prepared to commit itself at this stage either to a model based on common rules or a supervisory body.

And, as if that is not enough, the French will also have to begin a debate on the financial implications of enlargement, conclude an EU budget for 2001, and will host a special ministerial debate in Versailles on the European economy 10 years hence.

Patrick Smyth can be contacted at psmyth@irish-times.ie