ONE MORE THING CIARAN HANCOCKRYANAIR HAS patched up relations between itself, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni, a business conference in Dublin was told yesterday.

The airline had to pay the president a symbolic €1, and his wife a more substantial €60,000, after the couple objected to the use of their photo in a Ryanair advertisement. The ad had a "thinks bubble" coming out of Ms Bruni's head which read: "Avec Ryanair, toute ma famille peut venir assister à mon mariage."

Ryanair's relations with the French president "got off to a shaky start" after it "upset himself and his wife", Ryanair deputy chief executive Michael Cawley told a conference on doing business in Marseilles. But the company and the couple had since "kissed and made up", he said.

Ryanair chiefs have even met officials in the Élysée Palace and was effusive in his praise for Sarkozy and for doing business in France. "He's a president in a hurry and he will make mistakes, but we see him as a person who wants to drive change."

The president, if his talk is to be believed, is introducing a remarkable wave of change in France that will affect tax rates, labour laws and regulation, Cawley said.

Many people thought that "to be competitive from a French base is almost impossible, but we have done that", he said, while talking about Ryanair's Marseilles base.

It sounds like the dinner invites from Nicolas and Carla to Michael O'Leary will soon be in the post. The same may not be the case for No 10 Downing Street. Cawley was asked about tensions between Ryanair's growth plans and concerns about carbon emissions. He said aviation only caused 1.6 per cent of emissions "so don't tax 1.6 per cent of the problem into the ground, like Gordon Brown".