FRANCO-GERMAN RELATIONS: Historic awkwardness and present day economic realities kept the Versailles party low key, reports Lara Marlowe
"How we love each other!" proclaimed the front page of Le Parisien yesterday. The Franco-German love fest will continue in Berlin today. But there were ghosts at the French-hosted banquets in Paris and Versailles: the looming war in Iraq; the worsening German economy.
The caterer who served lunch for 1,180 French and German deputies at the Château told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung he'd never seen such "stinginess" when the French were entertaining. But it was out of sensitivity to the scandale in Berlin over the cost of flying the entire Bundestag to France for 90 minutes of speeches that the Speaker of the French Assembly, Mr Jean-Louis Debré, said he tried to be "modest, sober and simple" in organising the party.
There was nary an oyster, truffle or canapé smothered in foie gras to be had in the château.
There were, however, vegetarian platters for Green Party deputies. Instead of champagne, the parliamentarians were offered French red or German white wine.
Perhaps inevitably, language created the greatest difficulties. Despite their reputation for efficiency, the Germans failed to produce a French translation of the Chancellor's speech.
"I learned German at school," said Mrs Nadine Morano, a deputy from Lorraine. "But I've forgotten most of it. We kept trying to speak each others language, and ended up talking in broken English."
Because she was born in 1963, the year of the treaty, and is from a region long occupied by Germany, Mrs Morano was much in demand with reporters.
"I had a German pen-pal at school," she said. "I'm going to suggest we twin deputies from our assemblies."
Most found the singing of the national anthems, by a choir of German children, the most moving moment.
The German hymn - expunged of its Deutschland Uber Alles, sounded angelic; The Marseillaise infinitely more martial.
