Sarkozy Looking To Play Crucial Role In Gaza | Newsweek World

How the Left Can Rise Again
Denis MacShane 5/30/2009 12:00:00 AM
This should be the left's big chance in Europe. Capitalism is in crisis. Growth is collapsing. Unemployment is rising, and the state is back in business. The time is ripe for the left to push a coherent alternative to the right's free-market vision of the world. But no, the classic 20th-century parties of the left—social democrats in Northern Europe, socialists in the Mediterranean, Labour in Britain—are struggling, and 20 of the European Union's 27 member states have a right-wing government head. They include Nicolas Sarkozy in France, Silvio Berlusconi in Italy and Angela Merkel in Germany. Among the big four EU nations, only Britain's Gordon Brown hails from the left, and he's hanging on by a thread. Even supporters of the left look back a decade or more—to Willy Brandt in Germany, Felipe González in Spain or François Mitterrand in France—to find a political giant.
POINT OF VIEW
Waiting For Barack
Denis MacShane 2/28/2009 12:00:00 AM
The red carpets are being rolled out for Europe's most popular politician. In April, Barack Obama will turn up to meet his fans across the Atlantic, first for a G20 economic summit in London and then for a NATO summit in Strasbourg on the French-German border. Meantime, "Waiting for Barack" could be the title of a new play as all of Europe looks anxiously to Washington for answers to the world's intractable problems: a banking freeze-up, a job meltdown, a Middle East with no solution in sight, an Iran racing for nuclear arms, a quagmire in Afghanistan, a Russia that treats the European Union as a playpen for the Kremlin's divide-and-rule diplomatic games.
PERISCOPE
So Long, Sarko: New Leader, Wrong Time
William Underhill 12/20/2008 12:00:00 AM
Brussels is going to miss the French. During France's six-month stint at the helm of the European Union, President Nicolas Sarkozy managed to shift global perception of the EU from that of a slow bureaucracy to a major player on the world stage. Under Sarkozy, the Union agreed to climate-change measures, brokered a ceasefire in Georgia and coaxed Ireland into taking a second look at the Lisbon Treaty. At last, the EU was seen to be "proactive, constructive and effective," says Antonio Missiroli of the Brussels-based European Policy Centre.
WORLD AFFAIRS
Sarko Tackles the Bear
Tracy McNicoll 9/20/2008 12:00:00 AM
To little fanfare last week Russia kept its word. It dismantled checkpoints set up deep within Georgian territory during August's Russo-Georgian war, two days ahead of its Sept. 15 deadline. It was only the first in a schedule of promises made this month to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, negotiating on behalf of the European Union. But it was another key step toward something resembling peace, however cold and tenuous, in the southern Caucasus. For Sarkozy, it was also something of a personal victory, something tangible to point to in the mediation effort he's led, which is now putting to rest his image as a lightweight head of state, prone to flashy policy that seemed designed deliberately, even primarily, to stand out.
WORLD AFFAIRS
‘We Want To Believe’
Tracy McNicoll 9/6/2008 12:00:00 AM
French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner was on the ground in Tbilisi less than 72 hours after the Russo-Georgian war began and helped negotiate Nicolas Sarkozy's controversial six-point accord. Kouchner, a 68-year-old physician, long took on humanitarian crises as an activist. But now his idealist image is being tested by realpolitik. He sat down with NEWSWEEK's Tracy McNicoll in Paris to discuss how the European Union can manage Moscow. Excerpts:
LETTERS
Mail Call: A Changed China?
8/23/2008 12:00:00 AM
Our June 30 report on how the quake changed China won mixed responses from readers. Two who were present in China then wrote, "Thank you for a well-researched article." But another said, "Your claims are naive, even offensive." A third wondered, "Was it solely the negligence of rogue local officials?"