TIMESONLINE: President Sarkozy will meet Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya today as he seeks to reap political, economic and diplomatic benefits from his role in the medical workers’ release.
The French President, who is claiming credit for ending their eight-year ordeal, will want to enhance the international stature he has acquired since his election in May. He is also hoping to foster a special relationship with Libya that would pave the way for lucrative contracts for French companies with the oil-rich African state.
Having earned his Super-Sarko nickname after an active first two and a half months in office, he moved swiftly to capitalise on what is being portrayed in France as his latest triumph. “I promised to obtain the liberation of these women and that man and we have obtained it,” he said, while his advisers told journalists that he had been up all night finalising the deal.
President Sarkozy said that he had intervened out of compassion and a sense of duty that came from being at the head of a country claiming to be the birthplace of human rights. “The nurses, in my heart, were French,” he said. “They were French because they were unjustly accused and because they suffered and because we had to get them out of there.” He paid tribute to his wife, Cécilia, who visited Tripoli twice before flying the five nurses and the doctor to Sofia in the presidency’s Airbus 317. “Cécilia did a quite remarkable job,” he said. Super-Sarko flies to the rescue (more) By Adam Sage in Paris
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL:
Why Did Cecilia Sarkozy Go to Tripoli?
Mark Alexander
