Sarkozy Starts Strong

...Eric Besson, a former Socialist party secretary for economic affairs, had publicly switched to Sarkozy even before the presidential election...

...And Fadela Amara, born in an immigrant ghetto to a traditional Kabyle (Berber-speaking) family, who founded the women's rights group Ni Putes Ni Sou-mises (Neither Whores Nor Sub-missives)—Sarkozy has made her his minister for urban affairs...

...Royal and Hollande had lived together for more than 25 years and have four children...

...Just days after being elected, Sarkozy had insisted on meeting in person with union leaders before honing new industrial legislation—again, something no president had ever done...

...As for Britain, Sar-kozy adroitly exploited the changing of the guard there: Tony Blair could not possibly leave office on a sour note, any more than Gordon Brown could assume it with a declaration of war on the continent...

...Sarkozy knew he would win the support of German chancellor Angela Merkel, who had supported similar proposals...

...And she made clear she would make a bid for the party's leadership, if necessary against her former companion...

...Equally impressive are the president's inroads in the neo-French—that is, immigrant—community...

...The defeat left the EU in total disarray...

...And other ominous developments loomed: Putin's Michel Gurfinkiel is executive chairman of the Jean Jacques Rousseau Institute in Paris...

...Caption: "He is even producing energy for the Elysee Palace...

...One by one, the other European partners were approached and seduced, including the leaders of the smaller nations that, under Sarkozy's plan, would receive less representation in Brussels than under the defeated draft constitution: Portugal, Spain, and even the redoubtable Poland, currently run by the hypernationalist Kaczynski twins...

...Sarkozy has used similar methods in domestic affairs: simple, no-nonsense proposals, and a lot of face-to-face discussion with all the major players, allowing for adjustments or amendments...

...Throughout the recent presidential and legislative campaigns, the French wondered what exactly was the relationship between the Socialist candidate, Segolene Royal, and her common law husband, Frangois Hollande, the leader of the Socialist party...

...Rachida Dati, a woman in her forties of Moroccan and Algerian descent and an observant, if moderate, Muslim (she fasts during Ramadan), is now minister of justice...

...Jean-Marie Bockel, a Socialist senator from Alsace, switched sides in June, and is now in charge of relations with the French-speaking world...

...In addition, the "small treaty" was to be discussed at the European Council (or conference of heads of state or government) to be held in Germany by late June, at the end of Germany's EU presidency...

...He knew he had defeated Royal in the presidential election by about six percentage points, and presumably he feared he might not win a working majority in the National Assembly in the elections in June: a well-founded concern, as it turned out, since the right took 314 seats out of 577, an absolute majority, but short of the 400 or 450 seats most pollsters had predicted...

...The media feeding frenzy drowned out even the election returns...

...On June 17, at precisely 9 p.m., the moment the polls closed in the legislative elections, she publicly acknowledged being separated from Hollande, thus essentially validating Bacque and Chemin's book...

...Some, like the United Kingdom, felt justified in their own skittishness about anything more elaborate than a European free trade zone...

...The French were thrilled: Soap opera and politics were meeting at a level not seen since the fall of the monarchy...

...Royal, however, who won 47 percent of the vote, thinks she has what amounts to a popular mandate...

...Last weekend, the Socialist old guard—affectionately known as "the elephants"—circled the wagons around Hollande and started to isolate Royal within the party...

...Neither was the euro's steady gain against the dollar, hardly helpful in terms of world trade...

...Then he named Martin Hirsch, chairman of the left-wing Catholic charity Emmaus, high commissioner for "active solidarity" (emergency help for the poor and homeless...

...Terse and ungossipy (relatively little name dropping, for instance), it asserts that Hol-lande had left Royal a few years ago for another woman, and that Royal, seeking revenge, had worked hard to become a political leader in her own right...

...Before he left for the European summit, Sarkozy made sure to consult with Segolene Royal, his Socialist opponent for the presidency last May, and Frangois Hol-lande, the leader of the Socialist party...

...Left, right, and center, the sentiment was near universal: Sarkozy means business...

...Both were invited to the Elysee Palace and given red-carpet treatment...

...At times, it even seemed that Hollande resented his companion's candidacy and was surreptitiously undermining it...

...In short order, the "small treaty" was approved...

...The only puzzle was how such a modest, reasonable compromise could have eluded the EU for so long...

...Russia ratcheted up its bullying of the EU, both its energy delivery blackmail and its posturing over missile defense...

...As party leader, he had to show enthusiasm for the party's candidate, and he did, except that in his very last sentence, he said that he believed in a complete "Socialist defeat . . . er . . . victory...

...Two years ago, two of the European Union's founding nations, France and the Netherlands, voted down a draft constitution for Europe that would have transformed the present confederation into a federal superstate...

...He is a doer, and he does things so cleverly that he succeeds...

...At first, it was widely assumed that Sarkozy's openness was purely tactical...

...The concept he put forward was a "smaller, leaner treaty...

...Rama Yade, a Senegalese-born civil servant, is deputy foreign minister for human rights...

...The fact that two more countries—Romania and Bulgaria ("Northern and Southern Ruritania," as a French humorist had it)—joined in the meantime was no real comfort...

...The outgoing president, Jacques Chirac, for instance, always handled such issues by hiding behind his prime minister (Alain Juppe, Jean-Claude Raffarin, or Dominique de Villepin), who, in turn, usually made sure legislation had been safely passed before engaging in consultations, especially if a bill were likely to spark protest or unrest...

...Around the same time, the liberal satirical weekly Le Canard enchaine ran a cartoon featuring a pedalling machine under the president's desk...

...The man everybody loved to hate before and during the campaign—not just the left, but the Chirac crowd as well—is now eager to be friends with everyone, all the more so at a time when his Socialist opponents are riven with animosities...

...Some members, like Spain and Italy, had already ratified the constitution and felt betrayed...

...A Franco-German crisis at Airbus ended in the sacking of the French CEO, Noel Forgeard, the nomination of a German, Gustav Humbert, to replace him, and the transfer to Hamburg of key operations hitherto located in Toulouse, the avionics capital of southern France...

...Numerous plans for reviving the EU had been broached in various quarters...

...Sarkozy seized on a few of these and combined them in a characteristically smooth package, which he proceeded to sell...

...The new French president's most remarkable achievement so far has been to restore momentum to European affairs...

...What was notable was that they didn't seem to speak much to each other, and were obviously running separate campaigns, with separate agendas...

...When the book appeared, the couple sued both authors for breach of privacy, an offense that, under French law, includes exposure of intimate matters such as adultery...

...In retrospect, though, there is something transparently spontaneous and genial in his behavior...

...What once was rumor is now established fact, thanks to La femme fatale, by Raphaelle Bacque and Ari-ane Chemin, published between the presidential and legislative elections...

...Another feature of Sarkozy's approach is to bring into the cabinet, and thus coopt, as many people from the left or at least the liberal persuasion as possible...

...The fact that they were not legally married was, by Gallic standards, of little consequence...

...He made Bernard Kouchner, the famous founder of Medecins sans frontieres and a former Socialist minister of public health, his foreign minister...

...And the story goes on...

...She will fight back...

...The most telling incident, in this respect, was his slip of the tongue at the first mass rally of the campaign...

...This meant stripping the proposed constitution of everything grandly "constitutional" and concentrating on practical reforms, like the creation of an elected EU presidency to replace the present rotation (the presidency changes hands every six months, and every nation, large or small, gets a turn— clearly unworkable with 27 member countries), or the elimination of the requirement of unanimity for decisions on certain vital matters like security and immigration...

...Merkel would look sympathetically on a French initiative that could provide an accomplishment to crown her presidency...

...The rest started to wonder whether the Union had not reached the point of overstretch...

...This is very bad news for the left, which may collapse in the process—and very good news for the amiable Sarkozy...

...This was a complete break with the Fifth Republic tradition, according to which foreign affairs is the president's domaine reserve (private domain), not to be shared with the cabinet or even the prime minister—and certainly not with the leaders of the opposition...

...he was rewarded with a junior position in the cabinet...

...Then Royal changed course...