FRANCE: In taking such strongly opposing views on a possible war against Iraq, Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair are both taking the biggest gambles of their political careers, Lara Marlowe reports from Le Touquet
Outside the town hall of this small resort town on the English Channel, hundreds of well-wishers waved Union Jacks and French tricolours. A military band played God Save the Queen and La Marseillaise, and the rival leaders of Europe plunged into the crowd to shake hands.
But Prime Minister Tony Blair's grin looked brittle. The crowd chanted "Chi-rac, Chi-rac" - not "To-ny, To-ny". Although Mr Blair's popularity has plummeted over his support for George Bush's Iraq policy, President Jacques Chirac is seen to lead the anti-war camp worldwide. As a result, Franco-British relations have reached their lowest point since de Gaulle vetoed Britain's application to join Europe 40 years ago.
Mr Blair came to Le Touquet fresh from his weekend with Mr Bush in Washington, in the vain hope of bringing Mr Chirac "on side". British officials eagerly pointed out that their Prime Minister slightly distanced himself from Washington by emphasising his wish for a second Security Council resolution. If the French leader would not support war, the British thought, perhaps he could be dissuaded from using his power to veto a resolution authorising intervention.
French officials laughed at British optimism about Mr Blair's powers of persuasion. Mr Chirac was not in a giving mood. Why should he help Mr Blair out of his problems with his own party and population - especially after last week's "stab in the back", when Mr Blair signed the "gang of eight" letter supporting Washington? London didn't even have the courtesy to warn Mr Chirac that blow was coming.
It was a long way from the "Spirit of Saint-Malo", the December 1998 summit when the same leaders announced a series of defence initiatives that became the basis for the European Rapid Reaction Force. Tony Blair was the darling of the French media then.
It started going wrong, a British diplomat recalls, when Mr Bush came to office in January 2001. "The French forgave Blair's closeness to Clinton," the diplomat said, "but they can't fathom why Tony Blair prefers a right-wing, fundamentalist Christian whom they see as a buffoon to his European partners."
Franco-British tensions came to a head at the Brussels Summit last October. First Mr Chirac threatened to cut off Britain's EU rebate, sacrosanct since the days of Margaret Thatcher. Then Mr Chirac and the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder agreed to postpone reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. Mr Blair complained three times, in front of the entire European Council.
"You are an ill-bred young man," Mr Chirac snapped at him. "No one has ever talked to me that way. And our next summit is cancelled." Which is why yesterday's summit took place two months late.
In the meantime, Mr Blair tried to make amends, giving Mr Chirac a Churchill pen for his 70th birthday in November, and publishing a florid tribute to the French leader in Paris-Match magazine. Franco-British disputes over the ban on British beef and the immigrants' camp at Sangatte were resolved.
A spat over France's invitation to the Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to attend an African summit in Paris on February 20th created more hard feelings. Le Monde newspaper revealed yesterday that the visit was the subject of a secret deal, whereby Paris promised to vote to continue EU sanctions against Zimbabwe. Not only did Messrs Blair and Chirac fail to inform their cabinets, diplomats say they gave note-takers different versions of their verbal agreement.
You didn't have to look further than the press-kits handed out by the Élysée and the British Embassy to measure misunderstandings yesterday.
At St Malo, the British document notes, "France accepted that NATO would remain the foundation of Europe's collective security." The French account of St Malo says that "Great Britain accepts, within the framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, that the European Union establish an autonomous capacity for action based on credible military forces."
The British text goes on to say that "Franco-British thinking has played a key role in driving forward the EU's development of a European Security and Defence Policy". The French notes tell the (for Britain) bitter truth: that the security and defence policy was proposed by France and Germany on the 40th anniversary of the Élysée Treaty.
To avoid making a spectacle of their differences, Mr Chirac and Mr Blair choreographed their performance by telephone before travelling to Le Touquet. "There will be amicable discord on Iraq, and amicable accords on defence, immigration and education," Mr Chirac's spokeswoman predicted.
On Iraq, both leaders are making the biggest gamble of their political lives. Mr Chirac may seek a de Gaulle-like place in history by saying 'Non'. London and Washington have irritated him, but opinion polls support him.
At the root of Mr Chirac's attempts to prevent a renewed war against Iraq, his entourage say, is fear that it would doom all possibility of peaceful co-existence between the West and Islam.