France and Britain agree deal on language teaching

France and Britain will help schoolchildren in the two countries to learn one another's language under a £2.8m scheme agreed at the Anglo-French summit yesterday.

In the first educational cooperation agreement between the two countries, there will be school twinning and exchange projects involving 17,000 pupils and 1,500 teachers, mostly in London and Paris. There will also be internet links between hundreds of rural schools.

The agreement, signed by the British and French Education ministers, Charles Clarke and Luc Ferry, was one of a number of agreements on increased Anglo-French co-operation signed yesterday, despite cross-Channel disputes over other issues.

The governments also agreed to renew their push for a European Union defence policy, separate from but linked to Nato, an initiative begun at an Anglo-French summit in St Mâlo four years ago.

As part of the renewed defence co-operation, Britain and France are to examine ways of co-ordinating the movements of aircraft carriers, so that at least one British or French carrier is available for deployment to a trouble spot at any one time.

Britain and France agreed that it was time for the burgeoning EU defence policy to take on new responsibilities for peace-keeping and crisis management, especially in the Balkans. The countries pledged to share military, civilian and intelligence resources to help the other in the event of a terrorist attack or a natural disaster.

The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, and his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, agreed a series of measures to increase co-operation against illegal asylum-seekers. France is to allow British immigration officers, already operating in Calais and at the Gare du Nord in Paris, to work alongside French officers in other French ports. The British officers will be given full legal powers inside France for the first time.

The freshest ground was broken in education policy. Both countries want to encourage the learning of languages. Under the agreement signed yesterday, there will be teacher swaps and class visits between scores of primary and secondary schools. There will also be a Transmanche (cross-Channel) University, establishing computer links and student swaps between the University of Kent and the Université de Lille and the Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk campuses of the Université du Littoral.

The French Education Minister, M. Ferry, said: "These are strong, important agreements, which will I hope provide the starting point for much greater educational co-operation between Britain and France in the years ahead. We have much to learn from one another."

Next year is the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Entente Cordiale, the treaty that led British forces to fight in defence of France in two world wars. President Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair asked their ambassadors yesterday to plan a series of events to mark the centenary.