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The French, President Barack Obama likes to remind us, are America's oldest allies.

France's new socialist President, Francois Hollande, may turn out to be a valuable new friend as well.

He will be welcomed at the White House before the G8, external conference gets underway.

There is no doubt this summit will be dominated by the latest appalling and enthralling instalment of the Greek tragedy.

Mr Obama is by no means alone in urgently wanting more action to stop the crisis in its tracks before it spirals even further out of control, wrecks the European economy and sends shock waves across the Atlantic.

Mr Hollande is something of an unknown quantity in Washington, although the White House sent a team to Paris last week to get to know his closest advisers. I get the impression they liked what they heard.

How the two men get on personally will matter a lot.

But Mr Obama likes ideas more than chit-chat and they are, at lea