Some people stated that there was a lot of enmity between the two countries. However, I read somewhere that the enmity was largely blown up and they both really didn't hate each other that much. So how were relations between France and Germany between the formation of Germany and WW1?
Pretty bad. However the sphere of interest of each countries are so conflicting and there are so many rivalry that the alliances in Europe, that is not uncommon that 2 rivals allied against a third one on the basis of mutual interest. This is the justification of the Franco-German rapprochement.
One example is the rivalry of Great Britain and Russia for the oriental Mediterranean sea, Persia, Afghanistan, India and China. The British skillfully managed to get an alliance with the Russian, the British aim was not to be against the German but to contain the Russians in orient!
Likewise there are huge Franco-British colonial rivalry the peak of it being the crisis of Fachoda which almost led to a war. Therefore the French diplomacy between 1896 and 1900 was actively trying to seek a continental alliance formed by France-Germany and Russia against the British. Nevertheless, those negotiations failed, the issue of Alsace Lorraine being an impossible contentious to solve between the two countries. (while France was OK to abandon Sudan to the British in exchange of other colonial concessions). There is also a permanent propaganda that start in grade school in France that encouraged the revanchism of the French.