Building bridges

After a decidedly bumpy few years, Franco-American relations are witnessing a remarkable resurgence due in no small part to French president Nicolas Sarkozy, writes Brian Beary

When President John F. Kennedy came to France in 1961, he remarked how proud he was to be known as “the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris”. Almost half a century on, another US President, George Bush, was wowed by an equally glamorous first lady, supermodel Carla Bruni who wed French president Sarkozy last November after a whirlwind romance.

“It was a great pleasure to have been able to meet your wife. She’s a really smart, capable woman and I can see why you married her. And I can see why she married you too,” Bush gushed after meeting the French first couple in Paris in June.

And should anyone doubt the warmth of feeling that has grown between the presidents themselves, Bush noted how “I really enjoy being with President Sarkozy. He’s an interesting guy. He is full of energy. He’s full of wisdom. He tells me what’s on his mind.” Sarkozy claimed that French and Americans “actually resemble one another. We express our feelings,” adding “it so happens that today we have a lot of areas of convergence.”

What a far cry we are from the venomous days of 2002 and 2003 when former French president Jacques Chirac unleashed a barrage of verbal hostilities with his strident opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq. French fries getting rechristened ‘liberty fries’ in the US Congress canteen, Americans castigating their Gallic allies as “cheese-eating surrender monkeys,” former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissing Paris as “old Europe” – the picture was pretty bleak.

Where Chirac’s stately, erudite rhetoric jarred with plain-speaking America, Sarkozy’s frenetic pace, energy and optimism has gone down much better across the pond.

But it is more than a matter of style: on foreign policy, Sarkozy is very much singing from the same hymn-sheet as Washington. On Iran, he has adopted a harder line than his predecessor and indeed most incumbent European leaders, insisting that tougher sanctions are needed to dissuade Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.

He recently paid a high-profile visit to America’s closest friend, Israel, where he delivered a US-style pledge to Israeli parliamentarians that they could count on France’s support, although he was not shy about criticising certain Israeli policies such as the Jewish settlements in the Palestinian West Bank.

And while Sarkozy helped get himself elected by vowing to veto Turkey’s bid to join the EU, since assuming power he has softened his stance, much to the satisfaction of the US, which has steadfastly pushed for its fellow NATO-ally to be admitted to the EU.

Sarkozy further mended Franco-American fences at the NATO summit in Bucharest in April by promising to send eight hundred additional French troops to assist the alliance’s embattled military mission in Afghanistan. In Bucharest, he also announced his intention to re-integrate France into NATO’s military command, which French president Charles De Gaulle pulled his country out of in 1966.

All the while, Sarkozy has maintained his European credentials by pushing for a common EU defence policy. Had such a move come from Chirac, Washington would have been deeply suspicious, fearful it might threaten NATO’s primacy on military matters.

But Sarkozy’s general pro-US orientation seems to have dissipated potential US anxieties about an EU defence capability. “The weight of US opinion has shifted on this issue,” explained one US State Department official. “There is more than enough work to go round and there are no obstacles to the US assisting EU missions. The key is that there is coordination.”

While things are relatively harmonious on the foreign policy front as France assumes the EU presidency, the same cannot be said on trade matters. With the major world economies slowing down and energy and food prices soaring, the winds of protectionism are blowing and self-proclaimed free trader Sarkozy is not immune to them.

Commenting on the troubled Doha round of WTO talks, Sarkozy seemed to drive yet another nail into Doha’s coffin at the European Council in June, saying “it would be highly unrealistic to keep wanting to negotiate a deal where we haven’t received anything on services, nothing on industry”.

But with many in the US striking a similarly sceptical note on trade liberalisation, even if Sarkozy allows himself to be swayed by protectionist sentiment, he will have done much to improve the image of France in America.