This is the BBC.

When I heard about President Macron's gift to a grateful nation of the Bayer tapestry on loan,

my mind was taken back to a previous visit by a previous French president.

President Sarkozy came here and he couldn't have been prouder.

And the great British trick was to have him speak to both houses of Parliament

in the royal gallery of the House of Lords,

complete with the gold, the scarlet leather and the stained glass,

which Mr Sarkozy no doubt believed that he deserved.

Complete too, though, with an enormous painting of the battle of Waterloo.

Take that was the message we won.

And after almost a thousand years,

why the Bayer tapestry could leave France for the first time and be sent to the UK?

If anything puts current Anglo-French relations in context, this is it.

A tapestry from almost a thousand years ago,

describing a very different kind of summit meeting.

Now the French president has given approval for the 50-meter Bayer tapestry

to leave French territory for the first time.

President Macron's gesture highlights France's deep ties and long history with Britain.

Those cynics might say it also highlights a crucial French victory over its Anglo-Saxon neighbour.

Does the gift, the loan of course, of the Bayer tapestry to Britain really matter?

Well, of course it does.

Because gestures shape politics, they shape relationships, they shape diplomacy.

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