In spite of embarrassment over the nature of the French team's win, the appeal by Brian Cowen, Irish prime minister, for the French government to join his campaign for a rematch was rebuffed in Paris

Ireland's reputation for industrial harmony faces its biggest test in more than 20 years this week as government and trade unions struggle to agree a new centralised pay deal

Germany's centre-right government meets to defuse an internal dispute over its tax reform plans, only three weeks after the new partners agreed their four-year policy road map

German police have arrested two exiled leaders of the Rwandan Hutu militia alleged to have been behind a long campaign of atrocities in eastern Congo

The need for France and Germany to pull together is ever more obvious to an increasing number of people in both countries, writes Wolfgang Münchau