Foreign policy seldom decides the outcome of elections, but it is unusual for a campaign in a leading industrialised democracy to leave so few clues as the one that elected Nicolas Sarkozy. His opponent Ségolène Royal said just enough to make it obvious, even to her own camp, that she had better steer clear of foreign topics, after she praised the efficiency of China’s judicial system and described the Government of Afghanistan as “Taleban”. Mr Sarkozy concentrated on the reshaping of France. The 17 minutes on foreign affairs in their long televised debate dealt almost exclusively with Turkish membership of the EU, which Mr Sarkozy believes mistakenly would spell “the death of political Europe”.

Since he intends to limit the French presidency to two five-year terms, that contentious issue may not come to a head while he is in office. Others – the fresh start he has promised with America, institutional reforms in the European Union and France’s stance on global trade – will press upon him within a matter of weeks.

Next month’s G8 summit will require particularly deft footwork because the timing, days before the first round of France’s parliamentary elections, could hardly be more awkward. It will be Mr Sarkozy’s first public opportunity to demonstrate his determination to have “the best possible relations” with the US, but this ambition is not widely shared in France. Evidence of his determination to break with the absurd Gaullist tradition of treating America as an upstart rival to French greatness will emerge later.

Britain’s immediate interest is the EU summit in June. Mr Sarkozy’s thinking about a replacement for the rejected EU constitution is unclear except for one thing: his determination not to put a new document to a referendum. Close associates have suggested that he would prefer a text of “two or three pages, no big thing, just enough to make Europe work”. That would be good not only for Europe, but also for France, which was much bruised by the constitutional debate of 2005.

The snag is that such pragmatic minimalism will not sit well with Angela Merkel – and he counts on her to reforge the Franco-German axis that enabled France to dominate EU decision-making. Devils are, therefore, likely to creep into the detail even of a short text, notably on reducing areas where decisions must be unanimous. Britain should impress quietly on Mr Sarkozy that such steps would make a British referendum unavoidable.

Given the prospect of disagreements also on trade, where Mr Sarkozy denies that he is a protectionist but too often talks like one, British empathy with his reform agenda may not be enough to prevent storms across the Channel. These arguments must be contained to give Mr Sarkozy space. He has called for a French “debate in depth” to blow the cobwebs off French foreign policy, and to rebase it on the defence of human liberties. His victory speech held out the hand of friendship not only to the US but also to “the woman condemned to wear the burka” and the “oppressed” everywhere. In the Mitterrand-Chirac years, that French tradition dimmed. Mr Sarkozy’s passion for liberty is the clue to his affection and admiration for America. With British and German support, the potential exists now to rejuvenate the West as an alliance of democracies. Nothing should get in the way of that goal.