A New Era in Anglo-French relations?

I refer, of course, to President Sarkozy's state visit to the United Kingdom (and perhaps more specifically to his speech to both houses of Parliament which he delivered this afternoon). After rather frosty relations between Blair and Chirac, will things change under Brown and Sarkozy? Sarkozy does seem a different leader from Chirac - he is more suspicious of Russia and China, and is keen to rebuild bridges with the UK and the US (he has, for example, decided to send more French troops to Afghanistan). As an added bonus, the Queen speaks fluent French!



BBC News

He is the only french peron who I have ever heard show the slightest bit of gratitude for what we did for France during 2 World Wars.

Forgive me if I appear sceptical but I can't help but think this is just political rhetoric, I sincerely hope that I am wrong and that this does herald a new era in French / UK relations.

reply to post by Freeborn

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Not to worry - I did put a question mark in the thread title for that very reason

I agree we need to wait for concrete results, but this is an encouraging start.

This is excellent news as a story of improving international relations should be.
The UK & France ought to be very close
(just as we ought to be with all our EU partners)

But I guess a story about France & the French would never be the same without some sweeping generalisations and a harking back to WW1 & 2.

I think the key thing many forget is that the French are indeed very grateful for their liberation and the huge help given to them in WW1 & 2.

Unfortunately some seem to expect this and imply that it came as France suffered nothing in either war and all the sacrifice was all one-way, which is patently absurd.



[edit on 27-3-2008 by sminkeypinkey]

Sarkozy's speech to both Houses was very moving and emotional. I've never seen a French politician ever stand up and praise Britain for what we did to liberate them from the Nazi's (nice to know someone understands it wasn't just America). And I thank him for it.

He made so many good points about the European Union, hopefully that message got through to David Cameron. We do need to become very active in the Union in order to make Europe strong.

And, Sarkozy loves to upset the Germans! How can British people not admire him

reply to post by infinite

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Well, he and Angela Merkel (the German Chancellor) don't get along very well apparently - Sarkozy cancelled a mini-summit he was due to have with Mrs. Merkel at very short notice, which didn't put him in Germany's good books. He seems to have a different outlook than previous French presidents - much less like de Gaulle (which is a good thing), and much more his own man.

Of course, Sarkozy still has a lot of problems - his popularity is low, his reform agenda has come off the rails and (in the words of the French Prime Minister) France is "near bankrupt". But we'd be fools not to take this opportunity and see how far it goes.