EU PRESIDENCY: Nicolas Sarkozy has attained the image of an international statesman of rare ability, writes Lara Marlowe
CAN NICOLAS Sarkozy save the world? In just two months, with his stewardship of crises in the Caucasus and on world financial markets, the French president has attained the image of an international statesman of rare ability.
Mr Sarkozy is changing the way the world sees Europe, and the way Europe sees itself. "All has to change," he said at the closing of the EU summit here yesterday.
"This [financial] crisis has given us the opportunity to reconcile Europeans with Europe. I'm ready to place a bet: Europe will have a better image after the crisis." Mr Sarkozy called the euro group's emergency summit on Sunday, then on Wednesday persuaded all 27 member states to adopt the bank rescue plan. His next mission - one he has talked about for years - is to "refound capitalism" the world over; nothing less.
To this end, he and the president of the EU Commission, José Manuel Barroso, will travel on Saturday to Camp David to seek George W Bush's support for an international Bretton Woods-style gathering, named after the conference that established the post second World War economic order.
"Wouldn't it make more sense to wait until the new US president is in place?" Mr Sarkozy was asked.
He showed his usual sense of impatience: "By then, things will have got worse, in which case it will be too late, or things will be improving, in which case those who got us into this mess will say it's not necessary," he said.
So the man who once seemed to hero-worship George Bush is going to deliver an ultimatum: "We must have a summit before the end of the year. Europe is asking for it. Europe demands it. And Europe is going to get it," Mr Sarkozy said.
The French president says he's "had enough of Europe not counting".
The Europe he's creating fulfills long-held French dreams: "the emergence of economic governance of Europe" and "seeing the president of the European Central Bank talking with the heads of state and government - at last," Mr Sarkozy said yesterday.
Mr Sarkozy's energy, determination and audacity have been on constant display since the war between Russia and Georgia broke out in August. He indirectly defended himself yesterday against accusations that he caved in to the demands of Russian leaders Dmitri Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, saying that he and his foreign minister Bernard Kouchner "know every comma" of the agreements they brokered.
"Sometimes a degree of ambiguity helps you to find a way out," he added.
The French president has ruffled feathers in the past by failing to share credit for EU initiatives. He has learned to be more diplomatic, leaving the door open to the German chancellor Angela Merkel after she scuppered his G4 summit on October 4th, and flattering British prime minister Gordon Brown by portraying him as the inspiration for the euro group's bank rescue plan on October 12th.
The German and British leaders - as well as the Italian finance minister - have since claimed they, not Mr Sarkozy, originated the idea of a new Bretton Woods.
But Mr Sarkozy was certainly the first to propose it recently, in speeches in New York and Toulon last month.
Mr Sarkozy is receiving praise from all quarters. "Never before has Europe been led with such intensity," said Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg and president of the euro group.
Mr Barroso yesterday jokingly said he would vote for the Frenchman as permanent president of Europe. Mr Sarkozy's unprecedented EU presidency gives a taste of what the long-term presidency foreseen in the Lisbon Treaty could be.
Jean Quatremer, Brussels correspondent for Libérationnewspaper, wrote: "The 27 can but rejoice that they've had as a leader during this troubled period a hyperactive president from a founding member country which is at the heart of Europe [euro, Schengen], but also a permanent member of the security council, of the G8, of Nato . . . "
The Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung, which like Libération has often criticised Mr Sarkozy, says he is "at his best as a crisis manager" and thanked him for "saving Euroland". Mr Sarkozy's friends, according to the right-wing French newspaper Le Figaro, just call him "master of the world".