“Obama has been in power for a year, and he has already lost three special elections. Me, I have won two legislative elections and the EU election. What can one say I’ve lost?” Sarkozy is quoted as asking.
The article quotes a “source well familiar with French diplomacy” suggesting the criticism has become a reflex for Sarkozy, and attributes the “unhealthy” attitude to Sarkozy’s personal qualities, a matter of much fascination in France. Sarkozy, the piece speculates, got off to a bad start with Obama during last June’s visit to Paris, where the French president was displeased by both the “unflattering comparison between the physique” of the two men (Obama is much taller) and by the “adulation of the Bobo left” — not Sarkozy’s base — for the American.
The piece also quotes a Sarkozy advisor, Alain Minc, expressing what it claims is Sarkozy’s true view of Obama in Le Parisien: “He’s a charmer, a conciliator, but I am not sure that he’s a strong leader in a crisis writing.”
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