The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced a plan agreed with the French President Nicolas Sarkozy to help educate children in Africa. Mr. Brown made the announcement with Mr. Sarkozy at the stadium of the Arsenal football cub in London which has a French manager and some French players. Jonathan Marcus reports

Football provided the contacts for one of the new initiatives to announce here at the Emirates Stadium-- the UK-French plan to get 16 million African children into school by the 2010 World Cup. The education project will be backed by the football authorities in both Britain and France. An agreement here reflected a commitment to a closely together on a broad sway of issues, from climate change, immigration to security and defence. Gordon Brown said this could become a formidable partnership and President Sarkozy insisted that the new French-Britain relationship was no one-night stand.