"ONE HUNDRED DAYS OF CONFIDENCE"

"If a soldier does not want to be a general, he is a bad soldier," this proverb is not about the current president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, who always wanted to be a leader and attained his goal in a long, persistent and at times uncompromising struggle. And finally, he became the master of the Elysee Palace. For this reason, it is high time to summarize the results. The critical period for every politician - the first 100 days in power - is behind. He spent his first 100 days in quite an energetic manner. In such a short period of time, President Sarkozy was not just christened "Sarko-American", but was also compared with Rambo and Napoleon. There is also a book about him, which playwright Yasmine Reza called "Dawn in the evening or at night". According to the author's own words, her goal was to show that Sarkozy is not just a conceited, egocentric and cruel politician, but also a vulnerable and childish person despite his absolute confidence in his own views and judgments, unusual life energy, ability to do crazy things and sharp scent. Rank-and-file French citizens say that they look at their president with some amazement and are patiently waiting to see the real results of his activity which is so eye-catching against the backdrop of the last few years of Jacques Chirac's presidency. For this reason, it is no surprise that Sarkozy's rating continues to remain at quite a high level, while critical remarks sink in the flow of his active work. In any case, it seems that the president is not really worried about criticism - he continues to advertise and implement his ideas. So we can say that the incumbent French leader has not relaxed, although he has the reins of power - he has not really changed since the election campaign.

Sarkozy's address to the 15th annual meeting of the French diplomatic corps on 27 August drew special attention recently. For the first time as president, he outlined his vision of the main directions of France's foreign policy, which clearly caused an unprecedented interest in the whole world. Some observers, both French and foreign, immediately said that he has finally digressed from the foreign policy tradition founded by Charles de Gaulle. The Daily Telegraph pointed out that Sarkozy is inclined to drop Gaulle's precept of "brilliant isolation", which implies rejection of lengthy alliances with other powers. Others did not notice special changes and only stressed that Sarkozy is simply much more energetic, franker and cruel than his predecessor Jacques Chirac. The incumbent president, just like his famous predecessor General De Gaulle, wants one thing - "a great France".

The current French leader quite fairly thinks that the international situation is "dramatic". "There is a feeling of split and loss of manageability in the globalizing world, which is "falling to pieces" at the same time. According to Sarkozy, the bipolar world has turned into a multipolar one, but this did not create global concord - the tension which has turned into numerous political confrontations has even increased. The use of force does not justify itself (this is proved more than eloquently by the situation in Iraq), and international institutions are not capable of proving their effectiveness, which has long become clear on the example of Afghanistan and Darfur. All this causes a lot of problems for France, like any other country of the world. In any case, according to Sarkozy, his country has been just lucky to be part of united Europe which can play a great role in the harmonization of world order as one of the key players in the international arena. For this reason, the further strengthening of united Europe is an "absolute priority" of French foreign policy. Sarkozy made great efforts to ensure that a document called the Basic Collective Agreement is agreed and adopted. It is aimed at replacing the European Constitution which suffered a resounding setback following the national referendums in France and Holland. Then the French leader intends to set up a so-called "Council of the Wise" - a "high-level organization that will decide what Europe should be like in 2020-30 and what purposes it will pursue". The first conclusions and recommendations should be submitted by 2009, i.e. by the time the Basic Agreement takes effect and another election is held to the European Parliament.

According to Sarkozy, the main problems that the EU will have to tackle in the future are environmental protection, immigration problems and reliable energy supplies. Sarkozy also thinks it necessary to set up a system of European defence (Europe de la Defense), which implies improvements in interaction between military units, the development of new weaponry programmes and so on. These proposals should be based on the French-German brigade set up in 1989, the European corps, as well as the British-French agreement on the establishment of a European defence system which was signed in St Malo on 4 December 1998. It should be recalled that the European corps has 60,000 people, 700 tanks and 300 artillery guns. Experts point out that Sarkozy will be especially actively campaigning for his ideas in the second half of 2008 when Paris takes over the presidency of the EU.

However, how will Washington react to all this? Will it think that EU countries might create an alliance that would become a rival of NATO? Absolutely not. Sarkozy especially stressed that "military Europe" has no such goal. "… Out of the 26 members of NATO, 21 are members of the EU. There is no point in setting the EU against NATO, as we need both," the French president explained. On the contrary, Sarkozy seems to be more interested in bringing the EU and NATO closer. There is no doubt that London and Paris will be playing the main role in "Europe de la Defense" as their military spending comprises 67 per cent of the overall defence budget of the other 25 EU members.

All this is meant to make Europe, i.e. France, stronger. Only a strong country can overcome the tasks set by the president. Sarkozy is sure that France should be able: a) to prevent a confrontation between the Western and Islamic civilizations, which is the main goal of international terrorism led by Al-Qaeda; b) to learn to solve problems facing the whole population of the planet - global warming, depletion of resources and the emergence of new diseases; c) to ensure that "the giants of tomorrow" (China, India and Brazil) who want their status to be recognized "observe the rules of the game established in the interests of everyone" and do not try to find loopholes for themselves or demand exceptions, which might turn into "uncontrollable multi-polarity".

How is Sarkozy going to achieve his goals? First of all, in order to eliminate the terrorist threat and the confrontation between the West and Islamic countries, he suggests establishing "absolute cooperation" between the secret services of all interested states. Also, Sarkozy has decided again to put forward the idea, which he has long been trying to promote, of creating a union of African, Middle Eastern and European states of the Mediterranean basin. Sarkozy's speech showed that Paris is planning to intensify its efforts in Afghanistan. If Pakistan is still unable to tackle Islamic militants in the Taleban-controlled north of the country, Paris also intends to conduct a much tougher policy with regard to Islamabad. France is going to encourage moderate forces in Islamic countries more actively and help them develop modern technologies, including in the sphere of nuclear energy. Of course, all this implies that France should be move active in solving the Arab-Israeli and Lebanese-Syrian conflicts, as well as the situation in Iraq and the problem of Iran's nuclear programme. Sarkozy has already shown that he fully supports Israel and the "legitimate" government of Mahmud Abbas. He promised to do everything possible to prevent the establishment of a so-called "Hamastan" led by radical Islamists in the Gaza Sector. The French leader pointed out that his country is ready to start talks with Syria in order to solve the crisis in Lebanon. Sarkozy is especially tough with Tehran - he suggests increasing international pressure on Tehran and toughening economic sanctions. For example, the French president said the following: "This is the only way of avoiding the catastrophic alternative: a nuclear bomb in Iran or the bombing of this country." As for "uncontrollable giants", Sarkozy thinks that Germany, Japan, India and Brazil should be included in the UN Security Council as permanent members and G8 should be expanded to 13 members and include India, China, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa.

Observers could not but notice Sarkozy's sharp remarks about Russia. He said that Russia "is returning to the world arena, playing with its resources, first of all, oil and gas, and it is doing so with some cruelty". The French president is sure that if a country is a "great power", it "should not be cruel". However, it is strange that the French president addressed his clearly fair remark only to Russia. Nor has Sarkozy softened his position on Turkey - in his view, Ankara can join the EU only as a privileged partner, not as a full member.

Thus, Paris's foreign policy orientation under Sarkozy's rule is clear: France is one of the leading states of the world and should behave accordingly, prioritizing united Europe, extreme influence on the developments in the Middle East and Africa, as well as cooperation with the USA.

For the time being, only the latter point seems cloudless. At the moment, Paris and Washington are quite close friends. It is clear that in the Sarkozy "epoch", the Americans will no longer rename French Fries - famous chips from fast food restaurants - as Free Fries, as happened under Jacques Chirac, even though the French president thinks that the USA must make up its mind on the planned withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But Washington itself understands this as well, which is why it will not be offended by Sarkozy's remarks, especially as what is more important for Washington now is that Paris clearly supports Washington's position on Iran. Just like the USA, France is even considering imposing sanctions on Tehran beyond the UN. It is also notable that Sarkozy decided to spend his holiday in the USA, which did not actually please rank-and-file French people. The president, his wife and son holidayed in Wolfborough in a mansion with a home theatre, spa and a beach with a quayside. Because of all this, and first of all, for betraying French holiday resorts, the opposition even accused him of anti-patriotism. However, if the USA is a friend of France, and Russia and even Turkey are not really offended by Paris's attitude, inside the European Union, there are already some threats to Sarkozy's plans, which is clear from quite skeptical comments on Sarkozy's speech in the German media.

It is clear that Berlin is not delighted with France's "bid" for leadership not only in the EU, but also in the whole world. Berliner Zeitung draws the conclusion that Sarkozy is "weak and inconsistent". The Germans are lost for words: is the French president trying to become the most influential European politician - a role that has been successfully played by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the recent period? Why does France forget that Germany is the biggest country in the EU? Nor will Berlin forget that the candidacy of the former French finance minister, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was nominated for the post of IMF president, as it is believed that German politicians learnt this from the media. Germany also thinks that in the person of Sarkozy and his wife Cecile, Paris seized from Berlin the title of the liberator of Bulgarian nurses in Libya. Incidentally, after Sarkozy prevented the parliamentary investigation into his wife's role in the liberation of the nurses, he was flatteringly compared to Napoleon in France. 

It is not clear yet whether it taught Sarkozy a lesson or not. The French are waiting, because it is clear that they are more concerned about what is going on in France, not abroad. One of the most important domestic policy statements by the president is his threat to lift the 35-hour restriction on the working week. The president is sure that there is no need to divide hours in order to give everyone a job. Sarkozy also promised to halve the number of officials. As is known, the new French leader has never hidden his desire to "adapt" the French economy to the American free market model, though most of French people are happy with the current "social state" model. Thus, it is clear that Sarkozy's plans might lead to upheavals both in the economy and in society as a whole. But it is not clear how the new president is going to tackle the problem of immigrants which has significantly "subsided" recently, but has not disappeared. Present-day France has a lot of "painful spots", and they might influence even the foreign policy goals of the country. For example, a number of experts are sure that in a year's time, Sarkozy will be making absolutely different remarks. For the time being, he seems extremely conceited and full of energy. He has not made any significant mistakes, and everything important lies ahead.

While in the USA, Sarkozy demonstrated his tough character to the whole world when he jumped into the boat of journalists filming him during his voyage on the Lake Winnipesaukee and started shouting at them in French. A few hours before the incident, the president asked journalists to let him "have a quiet time with his family". So if the president demonstrates the same sort of zeal and ardour in defending the interests of France, the French will have nothing to worry about…