ANALYSIS:Obama's stardust sure to reflect well, writes RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC
WHEN PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy scanned last Monday’s morning papers, replete with news of his party’s clobbering in regional elections and musings on his political mortality, his mood cannot have been lifted by the big story from across the Atlantic.
The froideur between Sarkozy and Obama has been a source of endless intrigue in France.
Despite Sarkozy’s best efforts to bond with his American counterpart, his matey advances have been spurned by a president deemed by France to be the least Euro-centric of all modern occupants of the White House.
Although both leaders share a supreme self-confidence and ambition, and came to power as outsiders promising their countries’ renewal, their temperaments are very different. Their relationship has never been especially warm, but the nadir came when Obama declined a dinner invitation at the Elysée Palace last year and opted for an evening with his wife at a Paris restaurant instead.
Public disagreements between Washington and Paris on everything from financial regulation to the seating arrangements at last year’s 65th anniversary of the Normandy landings have been followed by intensive transatlantic sniping.
Senior French politicians have briefed that Obama is inexperienced and indecisive, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed in Paris that Angela Merkel and Gordon Brown have both been received at the White House, but that Sarkozy’s turn only comes today.
The two leaders’ meeting in Washington this afternoon is an attempt to inject some warmth into the relationship, and to give the pair the chance to exhibit a rapport. In the past week, both sides have been stressing the close and enduring ties between the two countries, pointing out that the French president and his wife Carla will be treated to dinner in the Obamas’ private apartment (the first foreign dignitaries to be granted the honour, according to Sarkozy’s entourage), and a joint press conference will be used to underline areas where views broadly converge.
Speaking to French journalists last week, US national security adviser James Jones dismissed the idea of strains, calling Sarkozy a “very helpful and steadfast ally”. If the French president sometimes urged Obama to push harder on Iran and the Middle East, he said, the US president appreciated the “honest exchange of views”.
With Sarkozy’s domestic fortunes sagging, the visit will be a chance to bask in the reflected glory of his US counterpart, and fortify his international profile before he takes over the chair of the G20 and G8 next year. For Obama, it’s a chance to rebut the charge that he has neglected America’s European allies, while possibly extracting from Sarkozy a commitment to provide more police and civilian training staff for Afghanistan.
Although the caricature of “Sarkozy the American” was always overdone, the French president is a long-time admirer of the US, and came to power promising to repair the damage caused to the transatlantic relationship by the Iraq war. There have been important gestures – the decision, against some strong opposition, to reintegrate France into Nato’s central command being the most significant – and certainly the poisonous mistrust of 2003 has been consigned to memory.
But even on issues where their views intersect, disagreements persist. Paris would like the White House to take a more hands-on approach to Israel-Palestine, and is pushing for tougher regulation of banks and hedge funds and more far-reaching commitments on climate change. The French government is angry with the US defence department after the European Aeronautic Defence and Space company recently withdrew its application for a $35 billion (€26 billion) military tanker contract after claiming the Pentagon revised the specifications to favour the American company, Boeing.
In his interview with French journalists last week, James Jones said Sarkozy was regarded as “an important counsellor” and “someone our president likes a lot”. But the relationship could be forthright: “Mr Obama respects communication which is clear and unambiguous. There’s no time wasted trying to be too polite and trying not to offend anyone.” On that, Sarkozy would surely agree.
Ruadhán Mac Cormaic is Paris Correspondent