'Friends' act by Bush and Chirac fails to heal rift

Presidents Jacques Chirac and George Bush insisted that Europe and the US were committed to a continuing alliance of "friends" yesterday to combat terrorism.

After two hours of talks at the Elyseé Palace, President Bush attempted to calm European fears that Washington might try to badger its allies into a new war with Iraq. He said: "There is no plan of war on my desk."

Mr Bush arrived to comparatively muted demonstrations in France, the third of four countries he is visiting on his one-week European tour.

Following suggestions by American officials that Europeans were tiring of the post-11 September "war on terror", President Chirac declared that Europe and the US had, "the same conception of things, the same determination... to eradicate terrorism".

On the Middle East, another source of US-European friction, President Bush rejected suggestions that American policy favoured the Israelis. He repeated his statement that the US wanted to see "two states" in the region, "living alongside one another in peace".

On the many other issues nettling transatlantic relations – from global warming to trade to aid for the Third World – the two presidents appear to have found little common ground.

President Chirac lectured the US leader on why Europe found America's attitude to these subjects overbearing and self-serving. Their discussion was described as "frank", which is the standard diplomatic code for a failure to agree. On the environment, in particular, the French President said all countries should learn to reduce pollution and the consumption of "resources that cannot be renewed".

Repeated at a joint press conference, this assertion brought a blank stare from the US president, who spent almost his entire career before politics in the oil industry.

Mr Bush went out of his way, however, to respond to the frequent European complaint that the US – and his own administration in particular – makes constant demands on its allies without consulting them.

"I appreciate this good man's advice," he said, nodding towards Mr Chirac. "I listen carefully. And I am proud to call him a friend."

Mr Bush seemed, however, to be in a rather skittish and unfocused mood after a demanding five day tour to Germany and Russia. He referred twice to Mr Chirac as "President Jacques" and pronounced the French President's second name through- out as "Shrak".

There were street demonstrations against Mr Bush's visit in Paris and in Caen, Normandy, but they were dismissed by Mr Chirac as "marginal". A turn-out of 4,500 in Paris and just more than 1,000 in Caen were well below the French left's usual standards. The demonstration in Caen was called to protest against President Bush's visit to the Normandy invasion beaches today. He will give a speech at the American war cemetery at Colleville, near Omaha Beach, to mark Memorial Day, the US equivalent of Remembrance Sunday.

The Caen march was addressed by the ubiquitous small farmers leader and anti-globalist and anti-capitalist campaigner, José Bové. He said that President Bush's declaration of a "war of good against evil" was part of a "hegemonic" American strategy for world domination. Mr Bové said it was "shocking" that Mr Bush should be received with pomp in Paris when the US had for many years treated Europeans with "contempt", on issues from trade to global warming.

Although this is an extreme view, many French people share the wider European irritation with a US government which demands obedient allies but rarely agrees to look at things from its allies' point of view. In France, this is nothing new. Suspicion of American power has been a tradition, on the left, and unlike other European countries, on the right. There is some satisfaction that other, formerly staunch, US allies such as Germany are starting to share what was once dismissed as a typically awkward, French attitude.

"The divergences today are no longer Franco-American, they are Euro-American," said one French diplomat.

Although President Bush went out of his way yesterday to salute the French contribution after 11 September, the "war on terror" has also been a source of irritation in France. The US declined to take up French offers of direct military involvement until the initial war against the Taliban in Afghanistan was officially over.

The Israeli lobby in the US has seized on the rise of the far right last month to portray France as a deeply anti-semitic country. Despite the overwhelming rejection of the National Front, this is held, somehow, to explain the French refusal to go along with military action against Iraq.

There are hopes, in both Paris and Washington however, that the change of government in Paris will improve day to day relations between the countries. Freed from co-habitation with the centre-left, President Chirac is freer to shape French foreign policy.

The former foreign minister, Hubert Vedriné, infuriated the Americans by describing the US constantly as a "hyper-power", which could trample European interests.

President Chirac is the most pro-American of senior French politicians. In the coming months, he may find himself in an unaccustomed position for a French leader – alongside Tony Blair trying to mediate in the widening circle of transatlantic differences.