One does not really understand what was the real reason for the ample delegation from Malta that was received with all honours at the Elysee Palace by President Hollande on Wednesday.

On the Maltese part, where other incoming administrations and presidents used to make sure their first visit abroad was to the Vatican or to London, this was a visit by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to Francois Hollande who Dr Muscat seems to have adopted as his political guru and inspiration.

It is rather more difficult to see why President Hollande chose to give small Malta such an ample time of his day. Certainly, having had riots on the streets in the previous days on the inspiration of Frigide Barjos, France best known Catholic activist, who led the protests against same sex marriage legislation, M Hollande was in dire need of a diversion.

A look at the Elysee’s diary for the day shows a list of many appointments on the day and the visit by the Maltese PM and his delegation can be contextualized there.

What was said then on the steps of the Elysee may reflect and then too may not reflect on what went on inside.

Over the past years, France, admittedly under a different administration, was not too keen on Malta’s place in Europe. On the night after Malta’s application was readmitted to the EU agenda, a tanker bearing the Maltese flag, Erika, broke up off the coast of Brittany and polluted the coast for miles and miles.

France then claimed that the Maltese ship registration was a flag of convenience and it took Malta years to shake off this appellation.

Then France objected to the Maltese legislation regarding online gaming and again Malta had to struggle very hard to insist and prove that its legislation was up to EU standards.

Then came the Cyprus crisis and Malta, with its huge banking sector, was mentioned by northern European media as being next in line for a bailout. That, as the Maltese government has explained throughout, is not true at all and Malta is no tax haven, as President Hollande said on Wednesday. This statement is highly appreciated by Malta, after so much negative comments.

Dr Muscat has tied his flag to the anti-austerity plank of President Hollande, and, indeed, his election appeal was also based on this.

But the Maltese prime minister was meeting a President who had indeed come to power, as Dr Muscat had, on an anti-austerity platform but who has found that this has not helped one whit France to regain competitiveness, and re-emerge as one of the principal leading lights of Europe. On the contrary, whether Dr Muscat noticed this or not, unemployment has been on the increase, more factories have closed down, rich businessmen have fled abroad because of higher taxes imposed by Hollande and France is now deep in a recession without hope of emerging from it in the immediate terms.

If President Hollande believed he was recruiting a supporter around the EU table by welcoming Dr Muscat to the Elysee, he may have gained a confirmed believer but that is not what he should have been doing, apart of course from paying homage to a fellow EU state and its government.

Maybe too, associating with the likes of President Hollande does nothing good and all the harm possible to Dr Muscat’s (and Malta’s) image internationally.