As his helicopter hovered over the Esplanade des Invalides yesterday, the Egyptian President, Mr Hosni Mubarak, could see the afternoon sun glinting on the new gold-plated pyramidion atop the obelisk across the river.
President Chirac went to Orly Airport to fetch the Egyptian leader, and he must have pointed it out to his guest. Thirty-two centuries after the Pharaoh Ramses raised the obelisk in Luxor, 162 years after it was transferred to the Place de la Concorde, Mr Chirac has restored the original gold tip to the monument, in honour of Mr Mubarak's state visit and The Year of Egypt.
Mr Mubarak is being received like a Pharaoh. In a two-hour meeting before their state dinner last night, and again at a private dinner this evening, the dying Middle East peace process was expected to be the main topic of conversation. "The President consults Mr Mubarak regularly," one of Mr Chirac's aides said. "He telephones him often - Mubarak is a wise man of the region."
The Egyptian leader's frustration with the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, coincides with the mood among French leaders - who are always happy to make inroads into a US sphere of influence. France is already Cairo's third trading partner; with 60 million consumers, Egypt is by far the largest Arab market. The French launched the Nilesat satellite for Cairo last month, and France finances major transport, energy, water treatment and irrigation projects in Egypt.
Mr Mubarak will lunch with the Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, and is to be feted by the CNPF, the French business management association. Together, he and Mr Chirac will visit the "Glory of Alexandria" exhibition at the Petit Palais, where they can feast their eyes on the 25-tonne pink granite colossus of Ptolemy II, fished out of the Mediterranean by the French archaeologist, Jean-Yves Empereur, three years ago.
It probably won't occur to Mr Mubarak that the Paris Year of Egypt owes a lot to Ireland's Year of the French. Two hundred years ago today, Napoleon - then commander of the revolutionary army against England - set sail from Toulon for Alexandria. Historians believe he chose Egypt as a consolation prize after the failure of Gen Lazare Hoche's attempted landing in Bantry Bay.
Invading England was too risky, so Napoleon decided to make Egypt a French colony, place himself within striking distance of British India and (a novel concept in colonialism) both teach and learn from the Egyptians. Along with 55,000 French troops, he took more than 150 scientists with him.
During his 14 months in Egypt, Napoleon set up the country's first postal service and melted Mameluke coins into French ecus. He built schools and hospitals, installed street lighting in Cairo and printed Egypt's first books in Arabic. After reading the Koran on the journey across the Mediterranean, Napoleon found it consistent with his own belief in a beneficent God and the fraternity of all men.
His attempts to persuade the country's Islamic spiritual leaders that the expeditionary force were true Muslims floundered when the muftis demanded that the French be circumcised and - mon dieu - give up wine. In the end, the muftis declared Napoleon a messenger of God and a friend of the Prophet.
The British and Turks would drive the French out of Egypt after only three years. The greatest legacy of France's brief occupation was that of the "Pekinese dogs", as Napoleon's army officers jealously referred to the scientists. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone and the deciphering of its hieroglyphs by Jean-Francois Champollion unlocked Egypt's lost history.
France's egyptomanie dates from this period. The French may care little for its present-day inhabitants, but they are mad about ancient Egypt. Egyptology is a standard school subject for 10year-old French children, and a five-volume biography of Ramses II has sold three million copies in France.
But unlike the Irish, Egyptians are not keen to celebrate their 200-year-old French invasion, which resulted in hundreds of deaths. They are annoyed that Champollion's inspiration is presented as the founding act of modern Egypt. The title, "Bicentennial of Cultural Relations between France and Egypt", had to be dropped. At Egyptian insistence, it was replaced with the more politically correct, "France-Egypt, Shared Horizons".
