A warm welcome in Toulouse

Thursday's French newspapers devote plenty of column inches to the Queen's state visit, which ended the previous day.

National and regional dailies alike have something to say, ranging from grand assessments of the visit's symbolism to comments on the subtleties and variation of the royal wardrobe.

Mixing business with pleasure

"Queen Elizabeth goes shopping in Paris and plays the diplomat in the Senate," says the headline in Le Monde, summing up these twin themes.

On the one hand, the paper pays ample attention to the Queen's speech to the Senate, the upper house of parliament, on Tuesday.

But it also reveals that "a job is going at Buckingham Palace... the royal palace is looking for an assistant private secretary to the Queen".

A possible job description, the paper suggests, might include "the need for a confident taste... given the number of times the Queen changes wardrobe in the same day".

Her Majesty had the good taste to choose an outfit and a hat of an indisputable mauve, Le Figaro

Le Figaro, meanwhile, is in more sober mood, at least in its editorial.

"The commemoration of the Entente Cordiale's centenary," the paper says, "has taken on major political importance in view of the European differences that followed the Iraq crisis."

But elsewhere, the paper shows its own pronounced interest in the Queen's dress sense.

This, it says, guaranteed her a warm welcome when she visited the south western city of Toulouse, renowned for its violets but also known as the pink city because of the colour of the local brick.

"Her Majesty had the good taste to choose an outfit and a hat of an indisputable mauve," the paper observes, adding that locals "interpreted this as a wink" in their direction.

"Toulouse coronation"

The Toulouse daily La Depeche du Midi takes up the theme as well.

"The pink city was in good shape and humour yesterday, to receive a queen dressed in violet," the paper says.

This, it adds, seems to have left the city and its people "under the spell of the Queen".

Another local paper, Metro, taps into the enthusiasm generated by the Queen's "Toulouse coronation".

"The place du Capitole was packed with crowds yesterday to welcome the Queen and her consort," the paper says.

"She discovered all the local specialities. But it was the violets which seemed to have touched her most."

In its Quote of the Day, the paper leaves the last word to Philippe Douste-Blazy, the city's mayor and France's new health minister.

"Please be assured," he told the Queen, "that the people of Toulouse are especially touched and moved by your visit."

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