OMAHA BEACH, France — Nicolas Sarkozy certainly tried hard to please the American president when the two met to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

The French leader pulled out the stops for President Obama's visit to Normandy yesterday, spilling with unusually generous praise for "the America that we love" and the U.S. veterans who fought for France's freedom from the Nazis.

Obama was appreciative, but reserved. The men were friendly, but they didn't seem to create much of a spark — at least in public.

"You think that people just want for us to be here together, holding hands?" Sarkozy quipped when the two were asked at a news conference whether the brevity of Obama's weekend stopover in France reflects low U.S. esteem for Europe.

Obama papered over any suspected rifts, saying his time is always limited when he travels. Noting that the U.S. economy "requires a lot of work," he said he'd love to come and picnic in Paris' Luxembourg Gardens when he has more time. French commentators read that to mean when he's out of office.

The meeting at the Prefecture in the Normandy city of Caen yesterday, where they held private talks, was one not just of two men with starkly different characters — Sarkozy kinetic and sharp-tongued, Obama cool and measured.

It was also one of two countries with a sense of exceptionalism, two nations that think they have lessons to teach the world.

"All countries are proud of themselves. But not all countries necessarily have the idea that they have the right to explain to others what they should do. That's a characteristic of the United States and France that we share," said Laurence Nardon, a researcher at the French Institute for International Relations in Paris.

"But we can't have two of us doing that. That's what explains this kind of reciprocal irritation and great reciprocal admiration ... it is not a neutral relationship," Nardon said.

But overall, the French-U.S. relationship is sturdy.