President Sarkozy of France travels to Camp David for a summit with George Bush today determined to take advantage of what he sees as Europe’s leadership over the financial crisis.

Mr Sarkozy has told close advisers and ministers that he is going to move fast, on behalf of Europe, to recast the rules of international finance.

“He is not going to let the Americans get in his way,” said one of his team.

At the same time he appears to be engaged in an unseemly scramble for the credit for co-ordinating Europe’s response, telling allies that the EU is “lucky” France currently holds the presidency.

“It is an historic moment. It will be seen how Europe did better than the United States, more than the Paulson plan,” Mr Sarkozy told senior MPs in his UMP party on Tuesday. “I have been the incarnation of this European will to act together.”

He told another group: “Without me, Europe would have been in a mess. Luckily I have been President of the Union at this time.”

He was also said to be non-plussed by the praise lavished on Gordon Brown, telling visitors “it’s us who put together the English plan”, according to Le Figaro.

But while Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize-winning economist, may also have praised the British for implementing the bailout first, it had powerful American backers.

In particular Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chairman, drawing on his own academic experience of previous financial crises, including the Great Depression, had concluded that direct investment by the Government in the capital of major banks was the best way forward.

Mr Bernanke continued to push hard for the recapitalisation idea as an additional option even after Hank Paulson decided to opt to buy banks’ toxic assets instead.

As the troubled asset relief programme Bill made its way through the US Congress, Fed officials made repeated efforts to ensure that it contained explicit language that would enable the Treasury to turn to a recapitalisation if it needed to — an option that was seized on Monday.

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