BERLIN -- A lavish dinner, a select few words on cross-border friendship and a free return flight home: German politicians had their trip to Paris to celebrate bilateral relations all worked out.

Then came the bad news. "Not at our expense," thundered Germany's powerful **Bild*** daily, the country's biggest-selling newspaper.

"People are bleeding -- but our politicians are planning a jaunt to Paris," it fumed, contrasting the trip with hikes in tax and social contributions the government is introducing to help cover a yawning budget gap.

The "jaunt" is in fact a planned one-day visit to Paris offered to all 603 members of the Bundestag Lower House of Parliament for January 22, AFP reported.

The occasion is the 40th anniversary of the Elysee Treaty sealing Germany's friendly relations with its neighbor France.

It will include luncheon in a sumptuously-decorated gallery of Versailles, the former royal chateau outside Paris, where French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will be the main speakers.

Their respective Parliament speakers will also say a few words, after which the German lawmakers will fly home on board two military airbus planes.

***Bild*** was scandalized, claiming using the military planes was the height of extravagance and that it was German Parliament Speaker Wolfgang Thierse's idea to invite all the Bundestag members.

He promptly hit back, winning a legal case to prevent ***Bild*** claiming it was his idea -- the formal invitation actually came from Paris. Moreover, according to the Bundestag's press office, the airbus planes are being used precisely in order to cut costs so members can return the same day. In France, the hosts will pay, while anyone who wants to stay overnight "will do so at their own cost." Thierse wrote to the parties saying the event would lose some of its sense of occasion if the Bundestag were not there "in full numbers."

***Bild*** was ordered by the court to publish a clarification, but had failed to do so by Tuesday's deadline. Thierse has now begun more legal action to force it to comply.

Meanwhile, Germany's opposition Conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) are up in arms too, Although not about the cost, estimated by ***Bild*** at some 500,000 euros (dollars).

Its leaders say the gathering would not be properly democratic unless other speakers -- such as their own -- were also allowed to say their piece.

Ironically, last year it was the CDU which insisted such gatherings were a good idea, suggesting they take place annually.

The Elysee Treaty, signed on January 22, 1963, enshrined the post-war mood of reconciliation between Germany and France.

It was initialed by president Charles de Gaulle for France and chancellor Konrad Adenauer for Germany and has been regarded ever since as the bedrock of relations between the pair, two of the motors of European integration.