...gone are the obvious signs of public unrest which saw up to 100,000 demonstrators take to the streets in mid-February as the international focus fell on the need (or not) for a second resolution endorsing a war against Iraq.

Out of sight maybe, but not out of mind.

Several days ago, in a leafy, affluent suburb of Paris, one British resident was accosted by an angry Frenchman with the words: "English killers!"

This incident appears isolated with the focus of French anger not the citizens of Britain and the US, but the administrations.

As the coalition forces advanced in Iraq, the British Embassy in Paris received a steady stream of almost exclusively negative emails and letters. There was a particularly outraged response to the Sun newspaper's portrayal of the French President, Jacques Chirac, as a worm.

Embassy spokesman Richard Morgan identifies two key moments that turned the tide. One was a photograph carried by Le Figaro of a helmetless female British soldier atop a tank in Basra, which seemed to typify the UK forces' ability to deal more sensitively with Iraqi civilians than their American counterparts.

The other was the desecration of a British WWI cemetery near Boulogne at the end of March.

"People thought that was one step far too far," Mr Morgan said. "We got all kinds of letters of sympathy then saying, whatever we think about the war in Iraq doesn't mean that we are in any way ungrateful - so that started to balance out much more."

&raquo BBC NEWS | Europe | Anti-war anger simmers in Paris