(dpa) - Britain and France will work "hand in hand" to reform international institutions such as the United Nations, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in an interview published Wednesday in the French daily Le Monde.
Asked if this week's two-day visit to Britain by French President Nicolas Sarkozy will mark a turning-point in bilateral relations, Brown said that he and Sarkozy had worked together for years, when they were both finance ministers, "and we have the same vision of a globalized world."
Brown went on to say: "France and Britain can therefore work hand in hand with common interests and shared values. This is the case, and you will see it in the coming weeks, of the reform of international institutions created in 1945: the UN, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund."
These organizations, Brown said, "no longer correspond to the challenges of 2008."
Sarkozy began his two-day visit to Britain on Wednesday. In an interview with the BBC, the French president also said that bilateral relations should be deepened.
The friendship between Britain and France "shouldn't simply be a matter of principle," Sarkozy said, but one that is "fleshed out by concrete projects on the economy, immigration, security, defence."