MacShane's Gallic charm warms French hearts

The icy relations that have supposedly gripped Franco-British relations are melting a little.

A British minister made a speech presenting the French viewpoint, in French, in the Council of Europe assembly in Strasbourg this week.

For a minister to make a speech on behalf of another country is thought to be unprecedented. Denis MacShane, the minister for Europe, was covering for his sick French counterpart, Noelle Lenoir.

Mr MacShane was in Strasbourg to present the British point of view in a debate on the future relationship between an enlarged EU and the even larger, but looser, Council of Europe. When he discovered Mme Lenoir could not attend, he offered to read a shortened version of her speech.

Fortunately the views of the two governments on this arcane subject are broadly similar, unlike their views on, say, Iraq or Zimbabwe.

Mr MacShane, who speaks fluent French, will be demonstrating his linguistic skills again on Monday. To mark the 30th anniversary of British membership of the EU, the London Underground is to add French, German, Italian and Spanish poems to its "Poems on the Underground" series. Mr MacShane will give a reading at Westminster station of "Optimistic Little Poem" by the German Hans Magnus Enzensberger.