PARIS, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Britain's Queen Elizabeth II on Monday expressed the wish that Britain and France would not be divided by political tensions.

    "We cannot allow current political tensions, whatever the feelings they create on one side or the other, divide us over the long term," she said in a speech in French at a banquet hosted by President Jacques Chirac and his wife Bernadette at the Elysee Palace in her honor.

    "We know that neither our two great nations, nor Europe, nor the Atlantic alliance, can allow themselves to be shaken apart or to have disputes in the face of the threats which confront all of us and our safety and our prosperity," she said.

    "Britain and France are two of the great European powers. They are old certainly, and they are proud of it, but they didn't hesitate to embrace the new era's modernity and vitality," she said with humor.

    "Of course, we will never be in agreement over everything, but life would lose some of its flavor -- and the rest of the world would be the worse for it -- if we did not, from time to time, indulge in turning out national caricatures."

    She said she hoped that the 100th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale "will be an occasion to acknowledge and to exalt in everything that we have in common.... Vive la difference, but alsovive l'Entente Cordiale."

    Accompanied by her husband Prince Philip, Elizabeth II arrived in Paris by Eurostar train through the Channel tunnel on Monday, kicking off her three day state visit to France marking the centenary of the Entente Cordiale (friendly understanding).

    The Entente Cordiale is a document signed in London on April 8,1904, which marked the start of an unprecedented era of friendshipand military alliance between the two ancient enemies at that time.

    Chirac said in his opening toast to the queen that the 100th anniversary showed that "the durability, depth and diversity of our ties overcome our divergences."

    Ties between the two countries had cooled due to the US-led Iraqi war. Britain had been a steadfast ally of the United State in the war, while France led the international opposition to the war, which was made without UN approval. Enditem