TIMESONLINE: Why the master of America's new First Mutt is no longer in good odour with President Sarkozy
France has been cooing along with everyone else over the arrival of Bo Obama at the White House, but the master of America's new First Dog is no longer in good odour with President Sarkozy.
Mr Sarkozy is pouring cold water on President Obama's efforts to recast American leadership on the world stage, depicting them as unoriginal, unsubstantial and overrated. Behind leaks and briefings from the Elysée Palace lies Mr Sarkozy's irritation at the rock-star welcome that Europe gave Mr Obama on his Europan [sic] tour earlier this month.
The American President's call "to free the world of the menace of a nuclear nightmare" was hot air, Mr Sarkozy's diplomatic staff told him in a report. "It was rhetoric – not a speech on American security policy but an export model aimed at improving the image of the United States," they said. Most of Mr Obama's proposals had already been made by the Bush administration and Washington was dragging its feet on disarmament and treaties against nuclear proliferation, the leaked report said.
Personal pique and French politics are also behind the souring of Mr Sarkozy's self-promoted honeymoon with the United States. On the personal side, the French President is needled by the adulation for an unproven US leader whose stardom has eclipsed what he sees as his established record as a world troubleshooter. "The President is annoyed by what he sees as the naivety and the herd mentality of the media," said a journalist who is privy to Elysée thinking. >>> Charles Bremner | Wednesday, April 15, 2009
TIMESONLINE: Sarkozy Snipes at 'Dim' Spanish PM and 'Weak' Obama
The US President is weak, the Spanish leader is dim, the German Chancellor is clinging on to France’s coat-tails and the head of the European Commission is irrelevant.
That, at any rate, is the world according to President Sarkozy, who has spent the week airing his unvarnished opinions of Barack Obama and an array of international politicians — abruptly ending France’s honeymoon with the US and needling Washington on several strategic issues.
In the latest in a stream of accounts from the Élysée Palace, Mr Sarkozy was quoted yesterday as telling an all-party group of MPs that Mr Obama was inexperienced and indecisive. “Obama has a subtle mind, very clever and very charismatic,” the French President said. “But he was elected two months ago and had never run a ministry. There are a certain number of things on which he has no position. And he is not always up to standard on decision-making and efficiency.”
The US President had underperformed on climate change when they met, Mr Sarkozy said, according to an account of the MP’s session in the newspaper Libération. “I told him, ‘I don’t think that you have quite understood what we are doing on carbon dioxide’.”
Mr Sarkozy was apparently irked by media reports that Mr Obama had saved the day in London by persuading President Hu of China to reach a compromise with France over tax havens. Mr Sarkozy’s version is that he shamed Mr Obama into action, telling him: “You were elected to build a new world. Tax havens are the embodiment of the old world.” >>> Charles Bremner in Paris | Friday, April 17, 2009
L’EXPRESS: Sarkozy ironise sur l"obamania"
Nicolas Sarkozy relativise l'état de grâce dont bénéficie Barack Obama :"Les journalistes n'ont pas de mémoire! En 2000, George W. Bush était si populaire que Jacques Chirac s'était arrangé pour dîner avec lui avant même qu'il ne soit investi." Le président français, qui accueillera son homologue américain sur les plages de Normandie le 6 juin, pour le 65e anniversaire du Débarquement, ironise sur l'"obamania" des médias : "Je vais lui demander de marcher sur la Manche, et il va le faire, vous verrez..." [Source: L’Express] Jeudi 16 Avril 2009
