It was all smiles and good cheer when Emmanuel Macron greeted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the steps of the Elysée, reports BBC News.
The cameras were there to show that all was well between the two leaders.
French government spokesman Olivier Véran told reporters: "This Franco-German engine - we've every intention of keeping it alive."
But behind the bonhomie, both sides know the EU's central relationship is under strain as rarely before.
On a host of subjects - defence, energy, aid to business, EU expansion - the two countries today find themselves pulling in opposite directions. And underlying everything is a fear fast becoming an obsession in Paris.
The French concern is that the war in Ukraine has ripped up Europe's geostrategic rule-book, leaving Germany enhanced and pushing France to the Western side-lines.
Symbolic of the rift was the cancellation of what had been until now a routine set-piece of Franco-German friendship - the regular joint meeting of the two countries' cabinets.
After a pause for Covid, these encounters were meant to resume at Fontainebleau on Wednesday. But faced with a glaring lack of common ground - as well, according to France, as the studied uninterest of several German ministers - it was agreed to call the session off.
Mr Scholz's arrival for a bilateral summit with the French president was an attempt to minimise the differences, but no-one is deceived.
Lamenting what it called the "glacial" state of cross-Rhine relations, Le Figaro newspaper said in an editorial that it was "the result of a profound geostrategic change - a continental shift that started a long time ago and which is destined to transform the face of Europe".
The essence of this shift - according to French analysts - is the awakening of the slumbering giant that is Germany, and its dawning realisation that it must shift for itself in an increasingly dangerous neighbourhood.