French and German politicians of a very different era were on stage at the same time as their current counterparts in the London G20 summit on Thursday. Although this was a smaller stage and in Frankfurt.

A talk to mark the ten year anniversary of the euro reunited former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt and former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.

The British prime minister addresses journalists at the close of the G20 Summit in London

The two men, at the height of their political power between 1974 and 1982/1 respectively, kept the Franco-German engine of the EU well-oiled.

On stage, Schmidt (b. 1918), slumbered in his seat and smoking like a rebellious teenager,  resembled a wily old lizard sitting in the sun. Watching online as I was, it looked as though he wasn’t paying a blind bit of attention as European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet, laid on the compliments thick and fast in his introductory remarks. Giscard (b.1926), you could see, was listening but looked somewhat disdainful.

It was interesting to hear them discuss Europe and its future. They speak in the way of people once in power and of a certain age do, with conviction and the knowledge that while the next generations might be doing them the courtesy of listening to them, they’re going to go ahead and do it their way anyway.

A couple of comments stood out. For me at least. Schmidt said he recalled Jean Monnet’s words while he was travelling to the Frankfurt meeting, that whatever positive or negative factors are decisive in creating the European Union, one condition is absolutely necessary “the close cooperation between the French and Germans.”

If there is no mutual trust between French and German political classes, leaders, governments, “the whole thing cannot work.”

“The present leaders must understand this,” he said. The current leaders Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Angela Merkel of Germany have frosty relations (as did their immediate predecessors), a result both of a clash between flash and down-to-earth styles and of Germany becoming more like a normal EU state – ie bolshy and EU-blaming when it suits them.

As for Giscard, he recalled touring the US before the euro was introduced to explain the process of European monetary union to the Americans. “I was received with absolute scepticism. No one expressed any confidence in the euro,” he said.

The common market would not have survived without it, he noted, with the discussion touching on what the effects of the current economic crisis would have been like without the single currency.

Giscard is still pushing his vision of a more federal Europe. He said he was not sure “how to introduce political will to give [Europe] its final structure” but promised his services if it should ever happen.

“Helmut and I are very happy to join you in 20 years if you come about it,” he joked. Although, as ever with Giscard, I am sure he was entirely serious on this point.

Asked if they ever disagreed on anything while they were leaders, Giscard pointed to Schmidt’s “smoking.” Helmut Schmidt just grinned, then added that they disagreed with Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.