The chemistry of personal relations within the European Union can be both weird and wonderful. Germany’s Helmut Kohl and France’s François Mitterrand made an odd couple that worked. The latest unlikely relationship to blossom is between Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s mercurial president, and Gordon Brown, the serious Scot at 10 Downing Street. The global economic crisis has thrust them together. But a longer lasting coincidence of Anglo-French attitudes underpins it.

When Mr Sarkozy and Mr Brown first met as members of Ecofin, the EU finance ministers’ council, they rubbed each other up the wrong way. Mr Brown liked to lecture his French counterpart on the iniquities of the common agricultural policy, while Mr Sarkozy staunchly defended his national champions. But their current elevation seems to have mellowed them.