On his fourth visit to France this year, President Thabo Mbeki got the full treatment: the pomp and ceremony, the carriage ride, the state dinner — and even a glimpse of the jewelled dagger under the ornate cloak.
The rare privilege of a state visit accorded the South African leader is something France reserves for its special friends.
In pulling out all the stops on this three-day event, President Jacques Chirac almost managed to obscure the complex, not to say adversarial, aspects of the relationship.
There was an unequivocal meeting of minds on Iraq. Both Chirac and Mbeki stressed the need to return sovereignty to that country without delay as the only way of achieving peace. This expression of a uniform view in Paris by two countries that strongly opposed the United States-led adventure in Iraq came as President George W Bush arrived across the channel for his state visit to Britain.
There was no daylight visible either between the solutions offered by Chirac and Mbeki for Côte d’Ivoire, growing disturbingly accustomed to its violent and unstable circumstances.
Mbeki summed it up with a familiar call for pressure to be applied relentlessly in the hope of movement. He got more than he hoped for regarding reform of the United Nations.
As a permanent member of the UN Security Council France supports the addition of Germany and Japan as veto-wielding members of the power house.
Like other permanent members Chirac has been at best ambivalent about increasing this status for African, Latin American and Asian countries.
This week, though, Chirac said ”it is clear that in one way or another, Africa must be better represented on the Security Council, among the permanent and non-permanent members.”
There is a remarkable similarity in the wider analysis of the two presidents of Africa’s ills. Addressing the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) support forum in Paris last week, Chirac spoke of the ”huge obstacles blocking Africa’s path” — wars, coups, corruption, HIV/Aids and poverty”.
When he spoke in the French National Assembly this week, Mbeki virtually echoed this sentiment — except for HIV/Aids, which he did not mention at all.
The partnership forum drew representatives of the African Union, 20 individual African countries, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation.
For France it was another mechanism to establish itself as the Western champion of Nepad, as evidenced by the way it put the African rescue plan on the agenda of the G8 summit it hosted in Evian earlier this year.
The presidents appear to have avoided the issue of the French arms-multinational Thales allegedly offering a bribe to Deputy President Jacob Zuma for help in securing a piece of the arms procurement business.
Mbeki’s position was explained before he left on the visit: this is a matter for the prosecuting authorities and he will not interfere with their work. In an interview with Radio France International Mbeki refuted allegations against Zuma.
”There is no scandal. There is not anybody, anywhere — in South Africa or anywhere in the world — who can produce one single fact to demonstrate corruption.
”Nobody has said, ‘Here are the facts which prove that what Deputy President Zuma has done is corrupt,”’ he added.
The president did have a frank exchange with his host about what the media politely referred to as a thorny issue.
Chirac officials insist that the French president’s endorsement of the Moroccan bid for the 2010 Soccer World Cup is not an issue.
A senior official went so far as to say he would not be surprised to see the president endorsing another African country’s bid. ”That is how good a politician he is,” the official explained.
The South African view, however, remains that this is a stab in the back from a country that has all too often operated a double agenda towards South Africa — dating back to the days that it did business with the apartheid regime for far longer than other Western powers.
Chirac attempted to handle the matter humorously and promised to take Mbeki’s views into account.
Nevertheless he remains determined to prop up the shaky Alawite throne in Rabat, whatever the cost to relations with the rest of Africa.
Morocco has shunned the AU, which recognises the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic that it has occupied in defiance of the UN for the past 28 years.
Chirac’s support of Morocco chalks out the limits to France’s friendship with South Africa.
France did not trust South Africa at the helm of Nepad together with Nigeria and Algeria. Furthermore, French officials are miffed that Paris has not been adequately credited for the help it gave South Africa in brokering peace deals in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.
They also argue that as it adopts an increasingly influential role in Africa — including becoming the seat of the African Parliament — South Africa does not show enough regard for the linguistic needs of the Francophone nations of the continent.
If losing an important sporting fixture teaches South Africa this cultural lesson, then France would be happy to be the teacher.