Blog: Obama keeps his distance in France

He failed to persuade Barack Obama to socialise with him, but Nicolas Sarkozy enjoyed a consolation prize yesterday: lunch with the President’s wife Michelle and their children.

Mr Obama was already flying home to Washington after doing the Paris sights with his family when Mrs Obama, Sasha, Malia and other members of the group were greeted at the Élysée Palace by the French President and Carla Bruni, his wife.

The two premières dames were the stars of the informal lunch that included Mr Sarkozy’s three sons by two marriages and Ms Bruni’s eight-year-old son. Mr Sarkozy led a chorus of Happy Birthday to Sasha Obama, who turned 8 yesterday, and they toasted the occasion of Mother’s Day in France. Mrs Obama’s mother, her godmother and a cousin of the two girls joined them.

Mr Sarkozy was putting his best face on Mr Obama’s reluctance to spend more than the minimum time with him during a weekend of D-Day anniversary commemorations, even though they were staying only a few yards away from the palace, at the US ambassador’s residence.

The Obamas’ whirlwind tour included Notre Dame Cathedral, the Pompidou modern art centre and a romantic dinner together at a small restaurant, after a cruise on the Seine in a tourist boat. The Obamas dined with friends at La Fontaine de Mars, a small, rustic brasserie on the Left Bank near the Eiffel Tower. They sat in a private upstairs room. Jacques Boudon, owner of the restaurant, said: “He behaved just like an ordinary customer. He arrived, ordered, they paid the bill and left.”

A food taster from the Secret Service tested the food first. “It wasn’t very pleasant for the cooks at first, but the person was very nice and was relaxed, so it all went well,” said Gabriel de Carvalho, one of the waiters.

Parisians cheered the Obamas, travelling in a 30-vehicle motorcade, as police sealed off all the streets through which they moved. Mrs Obama and her daughters ended by shopping on the Left Bank and Champs Élysées and taking a trip to the Louvre.

Mr Sarkozy’s staff were exasperated by the way that Mr Obama had imposed his own timetable for his two-night visit. “They have the uneasy feeling of having been taken for a ride,” said Le Journal du Dimanche, the Sunday newspaper.

Mr Sarkozy and Mr Obama insisted at their one-hour meeting in Caen on Saturday that they were friends, but the US President joked that Mr Sarkozy spoke so fast, they saved time. He then left out his French counterpart when he said what he would do if he could stay longer in Paris: “I would love nothing more than to have a leisurely week in Paris, stroll down the Seine, take my wife out to a nice meal, have a picnic in Luxembourg Gardens,” he said. “I think it’s very important to understand that good friends do not worry about the symbols and the conventions and the protocols.”

Mr Sarkozy said that he had better things to do than “pose for pictures for glossy magazines”, but he was clearly irritated. He also attempted to correct Mr Obama in his belief, voiced in his speech in Cairo on Thursday, that France banned Muslim women from wearing veils. France had nothing against the headcover, he said, except in the reception areas of state offices and in state schools. France wanted to be sure that girls did not wear headcovers simply under pressure from their families, he said. Mr Obama’s cool approach to the French President is not an isolated case. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, was put out by his decision to steer clear of Berlin during his visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp. European officials see Mr Obama’s apparent froideur as a reflection of a lack of interest in the continent. Others note that he simply prefers to stick to business and not waste time on playing buddies, as George W. Bush did, for example, with President Putin of Russia. “Obama did not snub the French President in particular. He refuses to play the game of familiarity with his peers,” said Le Journal du Dimanche.

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