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 Elys\u00e9e Palace lies Mr Sarkozy’s irritation at the rock-star welcome that Europe gave Mr Obama on his Europan tour earlier this month.<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 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<\/strong> and Washington was dragging its feet on disarmament and treaties against nuclear proliferation, the leaked report said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nOf course, there’s a domestic French motivation, too:<\/p>\n
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 Elys\u00e9e thinking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The other reason?\u00a0 France craves a more prominent place on the world stage; it left empire rather grudgingly.\u00a0 On those occasions where the US has left a vaccuum, the French have moved in.<\/p>\n
And there’d seem to be a vaccuum.<\/p>\n