Sarkozy Sees Obama as a "Friend"

Quick visit to Paris by Barack Obama to meet “friend” Sarkozy before flying to London to dine with Premier Gordon Brown. A brief stop of a few hours when compared to the more structured visit to the British capital.

In London, aside from the meeting with the Premier, he is also scheduled to hold a face to face meeting with the Quartet’s Representative to the Middle East, Tony Blair, and with the leader of the British Conservative Party David Cameron. Landing in the afternoon in the “Ville Lumiere,” Obama was received by Nicolas Sarkozy in his residence on the Champs Elysees. Despite the short time dedicated to him by the American “star” candidate, Sarkozy, who in the spring met rival senator McCain, demonstrated great appreciation for Obama.

In an interview with Le Figaro, the French president boasted about being “the only French person who got to meet him.” “Obama?” said the president, “he is a friend of mine. Unlike my diplomatic advisers, I never believed in the possibility of Clinton’s victory, and I always thought he would be elected.” Sarkozy met the Senator from Illinois once in 2006 in Congress in Washington, and reveals having “very good memories” of that meeting. Meanwhile, after the adulation of the German crowds, Obama’s visit has sent France’s newspapers into a frenzy: “Liberation” this morning spoke about “Obamania,” referring to the fascination that Obama creates “in his desire to show everyone that he already has the stature of a president.”

Yesterday, a Triumphant Rally in Berlin

Yesterday, Obama’s speech in Berlin attracted two hundred thousand people. For one day the bad feelings between America and Europe caused by the Iraq war seemed like a very distant memory. The young African-American senator asked that which George W. Bush, the current president, never obtained: European aid to the Iraqis, victims of an unjust war which needs to be put to an end. And the Berliners responded with a roar of applause: no more war. The senator stressed this point: America and Europe, he said, need to unite to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, convince Iran to renounce its nuclear ambitions and to continue to knock down the thousands of walls that are still standing.

Obama’s Speech

“The greatest danger is of new walls rising to divide us. The walls between the allies on opposite sides of the Atlantic cannot exist. Neither can the walls between the countries that have everything and those that have nothing. Nor the walls between races and tribes, between natives and immigrants, between whites and blacks, between Christians, Muslims and Jews, it is our obligation to knock down these walls together.” Obama referenced the speech by the republican Ronald Reagan, in front of Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, in 1987: an historic push against the Berlin Wall. “We know that walls can be torn down,” he said, “After centuries of tumult, all of Europe is united, in a sign of prosperity. Not only has the Berlin Wall fallen, but also the wall in Belfast, where Protestants and Catholics have found a way to live together, in the Balkans, where the civil war has ceded and barbaric war criminals have been brought to justice, and in South Africa, where a brave people defeated apartheid.”

“A New Generation Will Change the World”

Multilateralism is not a choice, according to Obama, but a necessity: America cannot rely only on itself, neither can the Old Continent. But the errors of the Bush Era have put this alliance in danger. “In Europe, America is viewed as the cause of the world’s troubles, and in America people deride the role of Europe when it comes to international security. Both of these ideas are wrong.” It is through the usual tones of Obama’s oratory, those tones heard in Berlin, that the senator confirms his appeal to the “new generation that will leave a mark on history, and will change the world.” On the political plane, the young, and according to his republican rival John McCain, “inexperienced” senator, has shown the American electorate that he is willing to bring America close to the rest of the world, overcoming Bush’s isolationism as well as his contemptuous foreign policy. For once a leader from Washington was not met with violent protests, but instead with rock concert-like crowds.