Charles Bremner - Times Online - WBLG

Sarkozy fumbles French Afghan force

Nicolas Sarkozy seems to be regaining favour after crashing to  unpopularity over the winter. A BVA poll today shows his approval climbing four points to 40 percent over the past month. This is the first rise since he went off the deep end with his autumn divorce and his speed courtship of Carla Bruni.

Heeding everyone's advice, Sarko has calmed the frenetic side of his nature and started acting presidential. He has pushed François Fillon, his Prime  Minister, onto the front line to catch the flak in the way that French premiers are supposed to.

Yet he has just made a new bungle. He has mishandled the dispatch of new French combat troops to Afghanistan

The France-America honeymoon

   

Talk about a honeymoon. Not only is Nicolas Sarkozy basking in the glow of implausible approval ratings at home, but the charm of France's new president has crossed the Atlantic to dazzle the American chattering classes.

It all sounds too good to be true ahead of this week's G8 summit in Germany and the first encounter between George W. Bush and the man who has earned the nicknames of l'hyper-président and the French Energizer Bunny. 

You might expect a rush of Francophilia from the anti-Bush New York Times, which ran an admiring piece this week on the "bold new style" of France's jogging, I-pod wearing new head of state.

But look at this from yesterday's Wall Street Journal, the most consistently anti-French of serious US media since Jacques Chirac picked a fight with Bush before the Iraq invasion.  At long last the United States has a friend in the Elysée Palace, said the Journal. Mr Sarkozy's arrival is an opportunity not to be squandered or trivialized. It could herald a major shift in U.S.-French relations and reinvigorate the broader trans-Atlantic alliance.   

Even those who made French-bashing an industry have called off hostilities against the cheese-eating surrender monkies.

France bashes Bush -- but wait for next year

The French television, press and radio have been doing as thorough a job as anyone in marking the September 11 anniversary. The air has been thick with  decent documentaries and reportage on the attacks and the aftermath for America. Inevitably, though, the five-year mark has allowed France to indulge in what I call one of its Soviet moments. These are the times when the country's feuding political tribes unite to deplore a universally agreed evil. Listening to most of the commentary today, you would believe that le mal du moment is President George W Bush.

Chirac contre l'anglais

There is something a little unhealthy about the way that the English-speaking world loves hearing about France's struggle to fend off la langue de Shakespeare. Every newspaper story on the subject guarantees chortles at breakfast tables from Sydney to Sidcup. The field is rich, what with language quotas in broadcasting and the 1994 law requiring French-only communications in business and advertising. That law, usually observed in the breach like so many French rules, produced its first conviction this month when a Versailles court  fined a General Electric subsidiary for issuing its staff with technical manuals only in English. It may be silly to try to legislate language, but, gloating aside, why should a country not seek ways to promote its language and the ideas that it conveys? Quebec has managed to keep its French alive that way.

Often, though, the guardians of Gallic linguistic purity are their own worst enemies and no-one sets himself up better for mockery than Jacques Chirac.