France's president grins, schoolboy-like, as he welcomes Barack Obama to his country where Americans in recent years have not always felt so appreciated. An eager French colonel admonishes his men to keep their heads high as Obama strides past. Teenagers blush and beam at the chance to brush fingers with the American leader.
The French _ and especially their President Nicolas Sarkozy _ are clearly out to set aside past strains and please the Obamas on their first presidential visit.
For Nicolas Sarkozy, the trip, for a NATO summit on the French-German border, didn't come a moment too soon. The French leader is an unabashed admirer of the United States, and French commentators suggested he had been snubbed when Obama chose to meet with other world leaders before making it down his list to Sarkozy.
The French-American relationship slowly has emerged from the chilly depths of 2003, when Paris under then-President Jacques Chirac led global opposition to the U.S.-led Iraq invasion.
Friday was Sarkozy's chance to prove that France is ready to move on.
When the two couples met for the first time, Sarkozy showed more emotion than the other three put together, slipping his arm around Obama's back and immediately employing the familiar "tu" form of addressing the American leader. Obama wrapped his arm around the French president in response, and they headed into their tete-a-tete.
Their wives, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy in an understated beige-gray chiffon dress and Michelle Obama in a black A-line coat flecked with fuschia flowers, exchanged kisses on the cheek, French style, and disappeared into a lunch prepared by Michelin-starred chef Philippe Bohrer.
A 1999 Pomerol wine from Bordeaux and Coquilles St. Jacques scallops set the refined tone for their cordial, if not overly gushing, exchange.
There was plenty of spirit at a town hall meeting later in a sports arena in the French city of Strasbourg. The crowd, made up primarily of French and German high school students, exploded repeatedly in applause, and pressed to get a chance to see Obama up close as he navigated his way out. Two young women bounced up and down, toddler-like, after touching the tips of his fingers.
Obama had some nice things to say about the French lifestyle _ he said he's "jealous" of the high-speed trains and pined over sitting in cafes drinking wine. He tried out some French, saying "Bon apres-midi," or good afternoon.
He didn't gloss over past differences, though, faulting past American "arrogance" and Europe's "casual" anti-Americanism.
Obama's choice of venue for his first French foray hung with symbolism that audiences here are certain to sense _ he did not visit Paris, the capital and emblem of so much that is French, but Strasbourg, seen as a center of united Europe, housing such cross-border institutions as the European Parliament.
Europe's euphoria over Obama's election has faded quickly, amid deepening joblessness and recession that many Europeans blame on American, and American-style, financial excesses.
Thousands of anti-NATO and anti-capitalist protesters were on hand to remind Obama that not everyone adores the United States and how it wields its global heft.
But in Strasbourg's streets, optimism and good will toward Obama persists.
Bernard Waltzer, who works for carmaker GM's French operations, says it's great that Obama's in town _ and that Obama pushed ex-GM CEO Rick Wagoner toward the exit.
"I think he's capable of doing things," Waltzer said. "I hope Obama will continue to manage all this well."
Obama's next French test comes in June, when he comes for the 65th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, where pro-American sentiment traditionally runs strong.
In a reminder of the history that binds their nations, Sarkozy promised Obama an "extraordinary reception" at the iconic, somber site where the tide of World War II shifted and "where so many young people from your country rest beneath the earth."
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Associated Press writers Laurent Pirot and Scott Sayare in Strasbourg contributed to this report
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