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On the face of it, there are no less similar characters in politics than Nicolas "Bling Bling" Sarkozy and Gordon Brown, the King of anti-Bling, whose idea of extravagance was supermarket champagne at his wedding. We must hope that he does not offer it to Mme Sarkozy, who does not look the budget type.
Still, this is not one of those Anglo-French encounters which is touch and go. Tony Blair's summits with Jacques Chirac were either passionate trysts with baby Leo lisping greetings in French, or icy affairs, post-Iraq, when M Chirac took revenge by saying you could not trust a country with bad food.
The Sarko-Brown summit has been artfully designed to ensure that its protagonists get on extremely well because both leaders have much to gain from a beautiful friendship - and a lot to lose if it falls flat.
For the PM, a visit by a major head of state and big player in Europe is one of the perks of a job that has turned into a trial in recent months. If his own poll ratings may be sticky, President Sarkozy's have come well and truly unstuck, as voters mutter that he is too distracted by his whirlwind affair with Carla Bruni to have much energy left for the day job.
M Sarkozy, meanwhile, is a vital ally for Britain in Afghanistan, where the Germans have reached the end of their very limited tolerance for engaging troops abroad and are certainly not prepared to do any fighting. Mr Brown needs all the help he can get to avoid the impression that he is slugging it out as a satrap of the US, with little enthusiasm or support from his European allies.
So the French offer to deploy extra troops in the east of the country - less dangerous than Helmand but not just laying pipelines in the safety of Kabul. That helps the argument that the project is a multilateral one and a course worth staying.
In return, M Sarkozy wants to exact his own prize closer to home: a French candidate in command of Nato's southern European operations after decades of the great French "non" to Nato's integrated military structure.
The ensuing row between Berlin - which does not strive for military influence itself but tends to object violently to anyone else getting it - and Paris has been bitter and personal. The French leader thus needs a helping hand of his own this week.
European power play is a new departure for Mr Brown, who has never shared his predecessor's zeal for defence and security matters.
Privately, ministers are nervous that opening up the argument about European defence will strengthen the arguments for a referendum on the constitution, the one thing the PM really does not want to talk about during this summit - or ever again if he can help it.
But if it can be swung - and the Americans persuaded that it is worth the trade-off to strengthen a weakened Nato - it would be the most farreaching and consequential deal of his premiership so far.
Beyond what Tony Benn calls the "ishoos", though, a stubborn ghost stalks this summit: the spectral presence of the former inhabitant of No 10 and wannabee next President of the EU, Tony Blair.
How very typical that Gordon's first big international entente be haunted by a man who isn't there any more - but never quite goes away. The "Blair for Europe" campaign had rocky beginnings last year, thriving mainly among Europhile loyalists and taken unseriously by everyone else.
I gather that has now changed. Close friends of Mr Blair say that he misses the focus of a big job, regards the EU as the great supra-national challenge, and would take it "like a shot" if offered it. Significantly, Cherie has given her blessing to this undertaking.
The French leader has put reform of the uncompetitive EU high on his list - and flirted publicly with the notion that Mr Blair would be ideally placed to spearhead it.
In a classic Blair speech earlier this year at M Sarkozy's invitation, the ex-PM was forthright on the need for a more "open" Europe - a direct steal from his old demand that the Labour Party needed to be an "open" institution not a "closed" one. It was as near as he could decently get to a job application without enclosing a stamped addressed envelope.
"That was just Tony doing a favour for an old mate," says one loyal Blair ally. Not really. Mr Blair chooses carefully where to give political speeches these days - and he obliged M Sarkozy because he is his main potential backer for the presidency.
The anti vote will certainly be fierce. Most European socialists hated Mr Blair for Iraq. Angela Merkel, who likes his reform politics and interventionism, is in a sniffy mood with anything emanating from Paris - and thinks that Mr Blair "talked big" on Europe but delivered little in return.
The initial response of No 10 to the "Blairope" plan was cool. In the past weeks, however, a change of tone is noticeable. One senior aide to Mr Brown points out that having him in the job would make Britain's testy relationship with the EU more palatable.
It would also enable Gordon to appear as a positive backer of a reformandgrowth agenda in the run-up to the next election, while the Tories are still not off the hook of their own tangled position on rene gotiating the constitutional treaty.
A member of Team Blair adds: "It just depends if Gordon can cope with the Tony thing as a human being which is sometimes the problem." Ouch.
Yet there are signs of a thaw there, too. Two of the prominent women invited to the Lancaster House lunch hosted by Sarah Brown tomorrow were strongly associated with the ancien régime: Anji Hunter, Blair's gatekeeper, and Lynn de Rothschild, an influential socialite who graced Planet Tony. Mrs Brown has ensured that her guest list cannot be accused of pro-Gordon sectarianism. It did not extend to asking Cherie to the gathering: the internal Labour entente isn't that cordiale.
Neither was the PM prepared to keep Peter Mandelson in his job as commissioner - one Blairite across the water is quite enough for him.
Of course, predicting the outcome of EU presidential races is a mug's game. The result tends to be forged in lastminute compromises and deals by the big powers with smaller countries. As such they are often the least worst solution - which accounts for the hapless state of EU leadership. Mr Blair can't start furnishing his Brussels residence just yet.
But it is striking that he is doing nothing to stop his European roadshow building momentum. M Sarkozy will have half of his mind on that this week, even as he looks lovingly into the eyes of Gordon - his second-best British friend.
Reader views (1)
The shameless French, supposedly our "new best friend" are in London with two transparent agendas :
a) to sell us shedloads of their nuclear power stations
b) to use a few soldiers they could send to a quiet backwater in Afghanistan far away from the combat zone as a bargaining chip to gain influence in NATO
Does anything else actually matter?
- Bill Toge, London, 26/03/2008 20:51
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