So Much for Good Relations with France

The election of Sarkozy in France promised some new and better relations between the U.S. and the French. It looks like the celebration was a little premature:

Nicolas Sarkozy, the right-wing reformer who becomes French President on Wednesday, upset both the United States and his opponents yesterday by offering the job of Foreign Minister to a Socialist veteran with anti-American credentials.

Hubert Védrine, 59 — a former senior aide to the late President Mitterrand — who served as Foreign Minister from 1997 to 2002, was considering the proposal yesterday.

The prospect of Mr Védrine running foreign policy has infuriated the beleaguered Socialists and amazed the diplomatic world because he is the architect of a doctrine for containing what he called the abusive “steamroller” of American power. His views on “the hyperpower” — the term that he coined in the 1990s — would appear to conflict with Mr Sarkozy’s pro-Atlantic views.

Mark Steyn adds to the description of the proposed Foreign Minister in this comment at The Corner:

Kathryn, some of us have been saying for a while that M. Sarkozy cannot be France's Reagan or Thatcher because the French people are not in the mood the American and British people were in in 1979/80. That said, the appointment of Hubert Védrine as Foreign Minister seems to mock even those with only the most modest expectations of Sarko. It's not that M. Védrine is anti-American but that his anti-Americanism is founded mostly on Chiracesque snobbery - he was the chap who started all that talk about ghastly Yank simplisme in the wake of the Afghan campaign five years ago.

Given Mr. Sarkozy's pro-American statements in his victory speech, this appointment is a little hard to understand. I guess the French will always be the French.

Could it be that Sarkozy has already fallen into the same disease that has plagued President Bush? Has the desire to get along with the opposition caused him to work against his own self interest?