(LONDON) - President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said he would use a state visit starting Wednesday to try to persuade Britain to play a bigger role in the European Union.

"Who can possibly think that we can build the Europe of tomorrow without Britain?" Sarkozy said in an interview with BBC radio.

"Who can possibly think that Britain can live alone, ignorant of a Europe which is just 30 kilometres (19 miles) away? Who really believes that? We need each other," the president said.

"I say 'Put yourself at the centre of Europe, we need you, we need your strength, we need your potential, we need your dynamism'.

Sarkozy said the time had come for Britain and France to trust each other and leave aside centuries of mutual suspicion.

"It has been long enough now that we have not been at war, that we are not wrangling," he said.

"Perhaps we can move from being cordial to being friendly... We are stronger if we work hand-in-hand."

Sarkozy said he wanted this relationship to be "fleshed out by concrete projects on the economy, immigration, security, defence."

He said that a strong Franco-British relationship could exist alongside France's traditionally close ties with Germany.

"I have the ambition of working hand-in-hand with the English, but not against anyone. That does not call into question the necessity of the Paris-Berlin axis, it complements it."

The French president, accompanied by his new wife, model-turned-singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, will be a guest of Queen Elizabeth II and will make a speech to the two houses of parliament during the two-day visit.

The trip is being seen as an opportunity for Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to turn the page on the strained relations between their predecessors Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair, who fell out over Britain's central role in the US-led invasion of Iraq.

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