Nicolas Sarkozy in London for talks with Gordon Brown and David Cameron

French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in London today to hold talks with both Gordon Brown and his Tory rival David Cameron.

Downing Street said the Prime Minister's meeting with Mr Sarkozy would focus on the preparations for the forthcoming EU summit in Brussels later this month - a meeting again expected to be dominated by the economy.

"They like to keep in touch before the big Brussels summits," Mr Brown's spokesman said.

With the general election just weeks away, however, the French leader is likely to be just as interested in hearing from the man who could soon replace Mr Brown in No 10.

Mr Sarkozy was widely reported to have been dismayed when Mr Cameron pulled the Tories out of the European People's Party - the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament.

The French were also dismissive of plans by the Conservatives to repatriate the powers from Brussels in the wake of the final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, which they bitterly opposed.

However, in a speech earlier this week, shadow foreign secretary William Hague struck a notably warmer tone on the issue of the EU, promising that a Conservative government would seek to play a "leading role" in Europe.

His comments were seen as an attempt to reassure leaders like Mr Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel that they did not want to reopen the old battles of the 1980s and 1990s.

But while Mr Hague even suggested the possibility of greater military co-operation with France, he also used a newspaper interview to reaffirm Tory plans to pull out of the European Defence Agency - a body the French strongly support.