President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin are both late converts to Europe. In the 1970s, Mr Chirac referred to advocates of European integration - in this case Valery Giscard d'Estaing's centre-right UDF - as "the foreigners' party". It took a long time to live that one down.
In 1992, Mr Chirac recommended a "yes" vote in the Maastricht Treaty referendum, but with serious reservations. Pragmatism, political analysts say, was the cause of his conversion. Mr Chirac realised that to become president of France he had to give up his outdated nationalism and obsession with sovereignty.
Mr Jospin too was a lukewarm supporter of Maastricht. The reasons for his own hesitation about Europe were perhaps best described in the Prime Minister's address to the National Assembly on May 9th. Europe has made substantial achievements in the past 15 years, he said, "but she hasn't escaped from the criticism of often being an elitist construction, oriented towards the economy and trade and neglecting, at least until recently, the nonetheless essential questions of unemployment, poverty and exclusion."
Although they are in total agreement about the priorities for the French EU presidency - cohabitation oblige - Mr Chirac and Mr Jospin have different visions. Mr Chirac is haunted by the barbarity of the Second World War and the Jewish holocaust, a theme to which he often returns. For him, Europe is the cradle of genocide. He sees the EU as a safety mechanism to ensure it never happens again.
But the flip side of Mr Chirac's fascination with European history is a Gaullist conviction that France must carry weight in the world and that, if she can no longer do so on her own, then France must exert influence through Europe. To mark the changeover from the Portuguese to the French EU presidency, the Elysee organised three Chirac speeches on Europe.
In the first, delivered to local mayors in Savoie on May 4th, Mr Chirac said, "France has always had great plans for Europe because she understood very quickly that her place in the world depended on it, as well as her culture, her identity, her strength." European integration was a way of mastering globalisation, "a fantastic amplifier of power", the French president said. Europe has "created a new entity, an entity with more than 350 million inhabitants, the first economic and commercial power in the world".
Mr Chirac's second speech, before the WEU Parliamentary Assembly and the Institute of Higher Defence Studies on May 30th, was a tacit reminder that he - not Mr Jospin - still controls French foreign and defence policy. Harking back to "the worst memories of Europe's past - ethnic persecution, hatred of others and contempt for freedom," he announced two French initiatives on former Yugoslavia: an EU-Balkan conference for countries who have made progress towards democracy, and the creation of a rapid reaction force "for the North Mediterranean area". Although Mr Chirac did not say so explicitly, French officials confirmed that the purpose of the force would be possible intervention in the Balkans.
France believes the creation of a European defence policy - in tandem with NATO but autonomous when need be - is essential for the creation of a "multi-polar world", as opposed to the uni-polar world under US domination. That their European partners couldn't care less about whether the world is uni-polar or multi-polar doesn't concern Mr Chirac or other French leaders.
Under the French presidency, Mr Chirac promised to promote more co-operation in defence among a small group of EU countries. This has so far taken practical forms, for example the German participation in the A-400M Airbus military transport aircraft announced in Mainz this month. But in the long run, France's yearning for an independent European defence policy is bound to lead to friction with Washington.
In his third and final speech, to be delivered in the Bundestag on June 27th, Mr Chirac is expected to reaffirm the importance of Europe's "Franco-German engine".
Mr Chirac and Mr Jospin have shied away from the debate provoked by the German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in his plea last month for a more federal Europe. "Federalism" and "federation" are "F-words" in French discussions on Europe. With a presidential election two years away, both feel public discussion would be divisive and risks wrecking the French presidency, whose first priority is institutional reform.
Both French leaders want integration to advance through greater flexibility. "Some states can move more rapidly towards integration, leaving the other member states the possibility of catching up at their own speed," Mr Jospin said on May 9th, before Mr Fischer's speech. "I am convinced that this is the way forward, avoiding the endless debate about federal or confederal models."
Economic growth and full employment were the first European priorities Mr Jospin mentioned to the National Assembly. His government claims credit for forcing the EU to pay attention to these issues "at Amsterdam, with the pact on solidarity and growth; at Luxembourg, with the first meeting of the European Council dedicated to employment; at Cardiff, emphasising economic reform; and finally at Koln, with the idea of a European pact for employment."
If Mr Jospin is a reluctant European, it is because he sees the market economy as a threat to France's system of social protection. He believes France can bend the EU towards the French way. "We shall not give up on the model of society that we have built over the past half century," he said. "A strong, more competitive Europe is also a Europe in the service of social justice."
He wants the "social agenda" which France is preparing for next December's Nice summit to adopt ambitious goals: "a high degree of social protection, a legal system adapted to the changing way in which work is organised, an employment policy that takes account of the mutations in industry, the struggle against homelessness and poverty and against all forms of discrimination."
To achieve these goals, Mr Jospin said, France will define with the EU Commission what sounds like an old socialist bromide: a five-year plan.
