France's pragmatic president can easily put aside tensions with the Tories should they win, writes RUADHÁN MAC CORMAICin Paris
FRENCH PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy may profess to be scrupulously neutral about the British general election, but the Élysée Palace is closely watching a contest whose outcome could alter the relationship between the two countries.
Although Sarkozy’s centre-right UMP bloc has a nominal ideological affinity with David Cameron’s Conservatives, the French ruling party’s instincts on issues from the welfare state to financial regulation are much closer to those of Labour or the Liberal Democrats. The French president is an ardent admirer of Tony Blair, and though he and Gordon Brown are not close friends, their intense co-operation in the hothouse atmosphere of the financial crisis has allowed them to develop a good rapport.
In March, during a visit to London, Sarkozy lavished praise on his “good friend” Brown, describing him as a “convinced and convincing reformer” under whose leadership the two countries had forged a close bond.
Coming on the eve of the election campaign, French commentators interpreted the gesture as confirmation of what was already widely believed: that Paris is quietly hoping for Brown to prevail this week.
“I know we have differences,” the French president said at Downing Street.
“He is British and I am French. He is a socialist and I am not. That doesn’t matter much. We have always worked in a spirit of partnership and trust.”
At times the relationship has been more tempestuous than the French president allowed. Sarkozy annoyed London last December when, after the French candidate Michel Barnier secured the influential internal markets portfolio in the new European Commission, he gloated that “the English are the big losers in this affair” and that “French ideas on regulation are triumphing in Europe”.
There have been countless disagreements over banking reform and other issues.
But Sarkozy’s relationship with the Conservatives has seemed even more strained. On his visit to London, the president also met David Cameron, but while their entourages said the 30-minute meeting went well, the body language suggested little of the warmth seen at Downing Street earlier in the day. Sarkozy was furious with Cameron when he withdrew his party from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the political bloc whose members include Sarkozy’s UMP and German chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU.
The French have also been annoyed by Conservative signals that they would take a more sceptical approach to European issues, a view aired last November when Europe minister Pierre Lellouche described the Tories’ EU plans as “sad” and “pathetic”.
Relations between Sarkozy and the Conservatives weren’t helped when shadow chancellor George Osborne made a joke last year about a box placed beneath his lectern, describing it as a “Sarkozy box” after the platform the small French president has been known to use when making speeches. According to a BBC report, British officials received a complaint from their French counterparts over the incident.
Ultimately, however, Sarkozy is nothing if not a pragmatist, and moves to build closer ties with the Conservatives have been taking place quietly for months.
Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox has been a regular visitor to Paris, while French ministers have held bilateral meetings with senior Tories including George Osborne, Chris Grayling and Michael Gove.
Encouraged by a speech given in March by shadow foreign secretary William Hague, in which he said a Tory government would play “a leading role” in Europe, Paris also believes the Conservatives in power would prove more flexible than their electioneering might suggest.