France, US proclaim new chapter in relations

US Secretary of State Condo-leezza Rice, on the most delicate stop of her fence-mending European tour, made a forceful appeal for improved transatlantic ties and was greeted by an unusually warm French response.

"It is time to turn away from the disagreements of the past. It is time to open a new chapter in our relationship, and a new chapter in our alliance," Rice said in a speech at a prestigious political sciences institute.

French President Jacques Chirac and Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, who met separately with Rice, responded effusively to her call for a halt to the bitter row sparked by the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Routinely referring to the chief US diplomat as "dear Condi," Barnier waxed enthusiastic on the meaning of Tuesday's rapprochement on the sixth leg of her whrlwind tour of eight European nations.

"Today the time has come to open a new phase, to start a new chapter, to make a new beginning within this very old relationship," he said.

"I'd like to say in public how much better the world works when the United States and Europe work together," the Frenchman told a joint news conference with Rice in the foreign ministry's ornate Salon de L'Horloge.

A Chirac spokesman said he told Rice that "France attached great importance to bilateral and transatlantic cooperation and shares a common desire to keep up a constructive dialogue."