For decades, the German-French relationship has been the most important one in the European Union. These days, however, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy can hardly stand each other. Why can't they just get along?

This video is part of the series CPD Video Conversations: National Branding at Expo 2010 Shanghai.

Several masterpieces from Musée d’Orsay are on display at the French Pavilion.  Here the Pavilion director discusses how culture is presented to the Chinese public and the Chinese image of France.

France and Africa opened new venues for cooperation on Tuesday to reshape global diplomacy, boost trade, battle climate change and fight pirates. At a two-day summit in the Riviera city of Nice, France shifted its focus away from its traditional west African allies and engaged with the continent as a whole, reaching out to economic powerhouses South Africa and Nigeria.

Over 250 African and French business leaders rubbed shoulders with African heads-of-state in Nice on Monday, as the 25th France-Africa summit, which for the first time will focus on both trade and politics, got under way.

The more time that Nicolas Sarkozy spends at home with his fellow countrymen, the less liked he becomes. And the more he globe-trots, or is seen to be dealing with world affairs, the more his popularity rises. For a leader who badly needs to rescue his poll ratings from the record lows that they hit in April, the temptation is clear.

The real purpose of burqa bans is to assert European cultural identity -- secular, liberal and individualistic -- at the expense of a visible, traditional religious minority. A nation such as France, proudly relativistic on most issues, is convinced of its cultural superiority when it comes to sexual freedom.

A French court ordered the release on Tuesday of an Iranian who was serving a life sentence for the 1991 murder of Iran's last prime minister under the Shah, the convicted man's lawyer said.