(Washington, D.C. - Right Commentary) An article by my good friend, Nile Gardiner, a the Heritage Foundation…. appeared in Human Events recently. I strong encourage you to read it as Nile does an excellent job examining the potential for change in US-French relations and the real power France wields (or rather doesn’t wield) inside European relations.

French Government, Sarkozy a Dissapointment

by Nile Gardiner, Ph.D.

In the immediate years following 9/11, the news media could always rely on a leading French politician for a sneering, headline-grabbing quote on America’s supposedly weakened standing in the world. Following decades of tradition, former President Jacques Chirac turned anti-Americanism into a chic art form, rarely resisting a dig at the U.S.-led war on the terror and American foreign policy. His foreign minister and later prime minister, the effete and pompous poetry-writing Dominique de Villepin, was even worse, famously refusing to say which side he backed during the U.S.-British-led invasion of Iraq.

There was however hope in Washington for a sea-change in U.S.-French relations, and an end to the tedious dribble of anti-American rhetoric coming out of Paris, when the relatively pro-American Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president in May last year. On some issues, Sarkozy has been a breath of fresh air. He has been a strong U.S. ally on the Iranian nuclear question, strongly condemning the nuclear ambitions of Iranian tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He has dropped the kind of confrontational language toward Washington that was the hallmark of the Chirac era, and was given a standing ovation when he addressed a joint session of Congress last November. There is indeed a lot of goodwill in the White House towards an outwardly friendly French President whom some State Department officials view as a more important friend than low-key British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. . .

(rest available at this link)