L'Oreal, LV woo oriental ally China

The scale of French participation at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo is a testament to the friendship between China and France despite a heated diplomatic row in 2008, said Jos Frches, commissioner general of the European country's pavilion.

Frches described the spat, which started when separatists disrupted the Parisian leg of the torch relay prior to the 2008 Olympic Games, as "the short estrangement between friends".

"The up-and-downs in Sino-French political relations are just one side of a thing. On the other side stands the friendship between the two people," Frches said through an interpreter. He was speaking after France joined Expo Online at the end of November.