A Franco-German friendship would alleviate problems of siding with either Austria or Russia, or Austria and Italy.

In 1988, Kohl and Mitterrand received the Karlspreis for his contribution to Franco-German friendship and European Union.

"The Alsatians were very slow in accepting the new postwar Franco-German friendship," said Jean-Marie Caro, a national legislator, who recalled that Alsatians scrawled anti-German graffiti on some of the first German factories erected in the region.

In 1961, he was the initiator of a city partnership between Stuttgart and Strasbourg, as part of the improvement of the post-war Franco-German friendship.

He wanted a Franco-German friendship that would both banish the prospect of another war, and end the arms race that had placed such a burden on the French economy.

The Franco-German friendship can be seen as a paradigm for this and many examples of its ambivalence have been quoted.

D Map An expression of flourishing Franco-German friendship, Strasbourg and its German neighbour Kehl have turned former customs posts and military installations into this 60-hectare garden, whose play areas, promenades and parkland straddle both banks of the Rhine.

"For France, the Franco-German friendship is sacred," Mr. Sarkozy said in an appearance with Mrs. Merkel, a fellow conservative, before the dinner.

The so-called German-French hereditary enmity was ended in 1963 with the Elysée Treaty and the implementation of the Franco-German friendship, so that the danger of an invasion that loomed for centuries over both nations no longer exists.

The Franco-German friendship became the basis for the political integration of Western Europe in the European Union.