Bush to hold talks with friend Sarkozy in Paris

Bush, who enjoys a warm relationship with French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- distinctly more pro-American than his predecessor Jacques Chirac -- is to fly to Paris after late-morning talks with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.Â

On Saturday, Bush delivers the keynote address of his tour at the Paris headquarters of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, emphasizing the need for US-European unity rather than a focus on disputes over climate change, Afghanistan and ways to address terrorism.

In an interview broadcast on French television on Thursday, Bush spoke of Sarkozy as his "friend" and noted the "excellent" relations between France and the United States, which have enjoyed a significant upswing since Sarkozy’s election in May last year.

The French president visited the United States in November and hailed a new era in bilateral ties, which had been soured by Chirac’s staunch opposition to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Bush and Sarkozy met casually last summer as well, when the US president had Sarkozy -- then on holiday in New England -- over for a barbecue at the Bush family’s seaside compound in Maine.

Sarkozy and his wife, model-turned-singer Carla Bruni, will host a private dinner for the president and First Lady Laura Bush on Friday evening.

In advance excerpts of his speech to the OECD on Saturday, Bush predicted that his successor in January will inherit "the broadest and most vibrant" transatlantic ties ever but urged more unity in battling Islamist extremism.

"As in the Cold War, we must also prevail in a wider struggle -- a battle of ideas," the president said in the remarks, which he was to deliver at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

"The rise of free and prosperous societies in the broader Middle East is essential to peace in the 21st century, just as the rise of a free and prosperous Europe was essential to peace in the 20th century," he said.

"Europe and America must stand with reformers, democratic leaders, and millions of ordinary people across the Middle East who seek a future of hope, liberty, and peace in Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Holy Land, Iran and Syria -- and Iraq."

Bush began his European visit -- likely the last before he leaves office next January -- in Slovenia, went on to Germany and Italy and will wrap up the tour in Britain.