Playing the global statesman puts pep in Sarkozy's step

ANALYSIS:HE IS deeply unpopular and has endured his most punishing year in office, but Nicolas Sarkozy has looked distinctly invigorated since the turn of the year.

During the traditional round of new year speeches to soldiers, social partners and the press, he has given the impression not of a man struggling to shake off the whiff of stasis but of one convinced he knows something the rest of us do not.

A glance at Sarkozy’s diary may help explain his good mood. This morning, newly installed as president of the G8 and G20, he touches down in Washington for a meeting with Barack Obama, where the pair will discuss Sarkozy’s plans for his year at the helm of both groups. A fortnight later he travels to the World Economic Forum in Davos, then to Addis Ababa for a summit of the African Union. Sarkozy’s aides say he will soon set out an ambitious global reform agenda, with the hope that deals can be struck at two summits: the G8’s in Deauville in May and the G20’s in Cannes in November.

The showman in Sarkozy relishes the theatre of global politics. His entourage remember well the domestic dividends that accrued from his presidency of the European Council in 2008, when skilful handling of the Georgian war, the financial crisis and Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty raised his stock. With a presidential election due just six months after the Cannes summit, the G-presidencies could scarcely have been better timed.

While Sarkozy may seem temperamentally ill-suited to patient diplomacy, his ambition and nose for attention-grabbing initiatives – so often the source of friction at home – tend to work to his advantage abroad.

The outline of a far-reaching agenda for the G20 is already taking shape. A senior official at the Élysée says France will focus on three issues: reform of the international monetary system to reduce exchange-rate volatility; new rules for commodity markets to end artificial shortages created by speculation; and improved global governance. Sarkozy has blamed the dollar’s dominant role as a reserve currency for helping fuel the financial crisis. French officials say the world must prepare for a future where the dollar will no longer have the field to itself. The French favour strengthening the role of the IMF, with it supervising capital flows or having more instruments with which to come to the rescue of countries in crisis.

The success of the French presidency will hinge in large part on China’s willingness to engage on the sensitive topic of currency stability. The US accuses China of keeping the yuan artificially low, harming its competitiveness, but Sarkozy has been keen to avoid alienating Beijing. Persuading China to take part in foreign exchange policy co-ordination would be an important success.

As for the G8, which has ceded much of its economic dimension to the G20, Paris hopes to focus on “green growth”, the internet and African development.

An intriguing subplot is that one of Sarkozy’s closest collaborators will be the man polls suggest is best placed to beat him in next year’s election. Socialist former prime minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, now managing director of the IMF, has grown in popularity since Sarkozy sent him to Washington in 2007, and the year ahead promises to raise his profile further ahead of the Socialist Party’s primary in November.

Will Sarkozy end up strengthening his rival, or will the prospect of more power for the IMF persuade him to stay in Washington? Some have even suggested DSK, as he is known, could be weakened by too many photocalls alongside Sarkozy. Strauss-Kahn is less popular in his own party, where many are uneasy with the prospect of being led by the enforcer of global austerity, than he is in the French population in general.

Ruadhán Mac Cormaic is Paris Correspondent