Ms Leong stresses that they came to the project uncluttered with the burden of promoting a particular point of view. As local people, they wanted to demonstrate how "this city of survivors" was making out during the changes.Mr Leong said the series shows "that Hong Kong is not just about 1997; in a sense that's happened already"."Hong Kong people have the same problems as everyone else but 1997 is always there in the background, sometimes it comes to the fore and then it goes away, but it is always there," Ms Leong added.Over the past four years the Leongs have got to know the main characters in the series as friends.Among the principal characters are the leader of Hong Kong's main pro- Peking political party, Tsang Yok-shing, and Christine Loh, a legislator in the opposite camp. A few miles down the road Po-chih and Sze-wing Leong, a father-and-daughter team, are installed in a cramped high-rise flat transformed into an editing suite, putting the final touches to a Channel 4 series called Riding the Tiger. The Leongs are looking at the transfer of sovereignty through the eyes of less elevated Hong Kong people whose struggles to cope with the changes are transformed into a gripping people's history.

Mr Leong, a well-known Hong Kong-based film-maker, started the work as a private project and roped in his daughter, a television producer, once Channel 4 showed interest in commissioning a series. Given that Hong Kong has been given an unprecedented 13 years to prepare for its change of sovereignty, it is remarkable that no one else has attempted the kind of oral history.Mr Leong says he wanted "to capture the essence of Hong Kong in the last two years". I am confident that France will continue to pursue a determined course of action in favour of European integration," said Jacques Santer, the European Commission President. "In particular, I am confident that France will ensure the success of the inter-governmental conference at Amsterdam, by the agreed timetable, and of the single currency on 1 January 1999.". In the crisp, pastel-shaded rooms of Government House, Jonathan Dimbleby's film crew are shooting the final sequences for a BBC series on the last years of colonial rule in Hong Kong as seen through the eyes of the great and the good.

The consensus behind Emu remained "rock solid," insisted Yves Thibault de Silguy, the economic commissioner. However, some analysts believe that the Socialist victory must increase the likelihood of a delayed launch.While France's attitudes to the euro will be most closely watched, the most immediate reverberations of Mr Jospin's victory will be felt in the talks on European integration, due to be completed in just two weeks' time at Amsterdam. The Socialists may seek to re-design Europe's integration plans to fit a more favoured socialist model and there was strong speculation in Brussels yesterday that this could necessitate a delay in signature of the Amsterdam Treaty.Elisabeth Guigou, a leading French Socialist, and former minister for European affairs warned last week that her party would call for a delay in finalising the treaty if it came to power.Senior officials were playing this down yesterday "Europe has always been at the heart of French ambitions. Throughout the day, Mr Kohl's party issued a stream of statements reminding Mr Jospin of the benefits of sound fiscal policies.These exhortation are, however, beginning to ring hollow even to the German audience. Having resorted to dubious accounting tricks, Mr Kohl's government now stands accused of undermining the single currency project, and of fostering a climate of fiscal laxity.In Brussels, European Union leaders insisted that the French Socialist victory would have no effect on monetary union. "I am very concerned about the stability of the euro," said the Euro-sceptic politician.Chancellor Helmut Kohl made a long telephone call to the French President, Jacques Chirac, in the morning, to commiserate and no doubt to seek an assurance that France would honour her European commitments. Similar sentiments were expressed by the conservative Prime Minister of Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber.

The Socialists may rock the Euro-boat by demanding a change in the rules for entry to monetary union, insisting on a soft euro, which would allow Italy, Spain and Portugal to gain certain entry in the first wave. German hopes to see a tough "stability pact", which would ensure tight fiscal austerity among all countries after the Emu launch, may be scuppered by Lionel Jospin, who has already dismissed the pact as "absurd". Furthermore, the new French power-brokers will seek support for the establishment of a powerful economic government, to act as a counterweight to the new European Central Bank, with far wider political influence than Bonn will be able to accept."Since yesterday the constellation has been altered so that we might know in the next few weeks, not in 1998, whether the euro will be a stable currency," said Edgar Meister, a member of Germany's Bundesbank council. Mr Blair, for example, will want to keep his distance from the French socialist drive for welfare and a shorter working week, preferring to emphasise his more centrist vision of flexible labour markets.Red wedgeLEFT IN POWERThe Socialists and Social DemocratsIN POWER ALONE: SwedenPortugal Greece Italy BritainFranceRUNNING A COALITION:Netherlands Denmark AustriaFinlandPART OF A COALITION: Ireland Luxembourg BelgiumIN OPPOSITION: GermanySpain. Across Europe, politicians, officials and businessmen were trying to work out the implications of the Socialist victory for Economic and Monetary Union (Emu). The evidence from recent European elections suggests that voters have been motivated by anger with the incumbents rather than love for their left-leaning challengers."The fact is that it is very hard to be popular in government at the moment," says Peter Ludlow, director of the Centre for Policy Studies in Brussels.Commentators point out that high unemployment and welfare cuts are top of the electorates' concerns but are beyond the power of any one government to solve."The fact that governments are changing across Europe so quickly is evidence of a massive conspiracy by Europe's political elite, who fight elections on the pretence that if they change policies they can influence these events which are beyond their control," says Stanley Crossick, head of the Belmont research institute.When Europe's socialist leaders meet in the Swedish city of Malmo this week, they are certain to discover that when it comes to the details of policy on jobs and welfare, their differences remain wide.