Amid standing disputes with Britain over the US-led Iraq war, if not so stormy as it was last year, French President Jacques Chirac would wrap up on Friday his two-day visit to Britain.

The visit comes at the end of the celebrations marking the centenary of the Entente Cordiale Treaty that ends centuries of colonial rivalry between the two countries.

Nearly 20 months after the relations between the two countries saw its lowest ebb over 40 years, both British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the staunchest US ally on Iraq, and Chirac, who vehemently opposed the US-led invasion, tried to put their differences behind them and pledged to work together to revitalize the Middle East peace process.

Admitting that the two countries had disagreed over the Iraq war, the two leaders stressed unity rather than divergency, with Blair seeing the "very close" Anglo-Franco cooperation on Iran, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Africa and climate change, and Chirac stressing the importance of looking forward instead of looking back.

"As we celebrate this centenary year, we also look to the future of our relationship. We have opened up new areas of cooperation," the two governments said in a joint communique. "We will build a stronger and more effective Europe, united, dynamic.

Contradicting his earlier comments that doubts Britain's ability to be "an honest broker" across the Atlantic ocean, Chirac told a joint news conference with Blair on Thursday that he believed the fact that Britain can be a friendly partner between the European Union and the United States was an "advantage for Europe."

As the celebration of the Entente Cordiale this year obliged the two governments to put on happy face, analysts here said, Anglo-Franco relations seemed to return to a level of calm after the Iraq rift.

Blair and Chirac may not be the best friends, but they need each other, British analyst John Lichfield said in an editorial published by the British Independent newspaper on the first day of Chirac's visit.

"Although still divided by some old favorites, such as farming and budget rebates and taxation policy, Britain and France take a broadly similar view of how the EU should develop. Beyond that, Chirac needs Blair as a connection to Washington, and Blair needs Chirac to prove that he is still a Great European," Lichfield argued, stressing that "Chirac knows that an influential Europe cannot exist without Britain and its special connection with the US."

In another editorial, the paper maintained that though the shadow of Iraq might continue to loom over these two fractious leaders, Blair and Chirac should focus on what unites them, not on their divisions, a view shared by French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie.

"Our respective strategic priorities have diverged during the past decades. The British committing themselves more to the special relationship with the United States after the political failure of Suez, whereas President de Galle affirmed the strict autonomy of our country. Nevertheless, our global objectives remain similar," Marie wrote in the article entitled From Entente Cordiale to Strategic Partnership.

"Today, the commemoration of the Entente Cordiale gives us the opportunity to reflect on what we have lived through together. It allows us to emphasize that despite our difference, what unites us is much more important than what divides us," she added.

However, it would still be impossible to ignore the Iraq rancor between Britain and France as Chirac refused to back down in his opposition to the Iraq war or his belief that it had not made the world a safer place.

"If you see the way things are developing in the world in terms of security and the expansion of terrorism, you cannot say credibly the situation has significantly improved," the French President said on Thursday. "Who is right or wrong, history will tell."

Chirac also used his visit to Britain to warn its neighbor and the United States that their plans to spread democracy around the world must not turn into a modern-day colonialism based on US military might, the Independent said on Friday.

"We must avoid any confusion between democratization and Westernization. For although our memory is sometimes short, the peoples submitted to the West's domination in the past have not forgotten and are quick to see a resurgence of imperialism and colonialism," the newspaper quoted Chirac as saying in a speech later on Thursday.

Even before his trip to London, though claiming that France would help to rebuild Iraq, the French leader reiterated that he could not imagine sending French troops to the country.

Briefing British correspondents at the Elysee Palace earlier this week, Chirac also showed his divergent views from Blair on transatlantic relations.

He noted that the United States, under its present leaders, did not feel in any way bound to return favors, not even to the faithful British, whose stance toward Washington contradicts France's vision of Europe taking its place as an equal partner with the United States on the world stage.

"Though neither Britain nor France would want to rehearse old arguments, Iraq still remains significant because it underpins the two leaders' very different visions of world affairs, which are not easily reconciled," the Independent concluded.