The challenges multiply its coffers are empty

Are relations between Paris and Washington profoundly different from the arrival in power of Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Barack Obama in the United States Posed thus, the question is like almost a provocation. Of course, everything has changed and confidence now outweighs all other considerations. Has the France not made the choice to return highly symbolically to the integrated NATO command And, for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic Paris sets more international identity by report, if not against Washington. The American side, the rallying to the multilateralism of the Obama administration is unambiguous. The new President did not, during his tour, said repeatedly that America was "to listen, learn, and if necessary Guide" A France that is defined more in America, a more modest America, to listen to its allies and partners. Apparently everything has changed in the Franco-American relationship, even if it is more of a process to a radical turn. Relations between Paris and Washington had already improved margin in the second term of President Bush.

And yet, some ambiguities and contradictions remain, it would be dangerous to ignore. There is always in effect a double imbalance in the Franco-American relationship. Since the second world war, the two countries are more in the same category of power. And this imbalance of status and means double of an imbalance of interest. If the passion of the France for America, positive, negative yesterday today since the election of Barack Obama, does grow, it's the distance, otherwise the indifference, which dominates in the United States, not only to the France but to Europe more generally. Since my arrival in America, three months of this, images from France did that once the first page of the "New York Times" at the strong mobilization of the trade union demonstrations. The curiosity of my colleagues or my students for the French situation is almost non-existent.

Course, also, the popularity of Barack Obama is the highest that an American President has known in France since John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And President Sarkozy could engage his country in a Copernican revolution in the United States with the support of a majority of opinion. Not remains that, in many departments in France, beginning perhaps with the foreign, traditional reflexes to preserve "French exception" are still very present.

On the American side, the rallying to multilateralism is not an acceptance accompanied the multipolarity. America certainly look the world with more modesty. It is more to impose democracy by force if necessary. She knows that she needs more than ever to allies and partners in these time strategically and economically difficult. The challenges multiply its coffers are empty. But America still regards itself as the only "indispensable nation"; the idea that it could become a center of power of tomorrow is profoundly foreign to him. It is even contrary to the one that America itself.

Should add to these structural data of the more personal emotions Nicolas Sarkozy, at the end of the second term of George w. Bush and then the France had the Presidency of the European Union, could feel a few months "King of the world". This is no longer the case today, which can lead to unwanted comments on Obama.

If, in the United States, it welcomed the policy conducted by Nicolas Sarkozy, expressed reservations about the person. In France, it is almost the reverse: we love the person of Obama, even if, as in America, expressed doubts about its policy. It would be too simplistic to say that "everything has changed, but nothing has changed" in the Franco-American relationship. The improvement of relations between our two countries is spectacular, but do not dream, time of misunderstandings and difficulties is not yet complete. The causes of possible friction, the Afghanistan to the economy, still exist and will increase with time.