Nicolas Sarkozy seems to be taking the lead in dealing with Iran and Lebanon. France has changed in just one short week.
This just in from The Tocqueville Connection
http://www.ttc.org/200705231436.l4neaq824914.htm
FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER KOUCHNER TO PAY VISIT TO LEBANON
- France’s new Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner will pay a visit to Lebanon on Thursday and Friday to show solidarity with Beirut at “this critical time”, the foreign ministry said.
Kouchner will be making his first visit to the Middle East since his appointment to the rightwing government of President Nicolas Sarkozy last week.
“His visit is aimed at asserting France’s solidarity with Lebanon and with its people, at this critical time,” said a foreign ministry statement.
An estimated 10,000 refugees have fled a battered Palestinian camp in northern Lebanon since the two sides halted fire on Tuesday after three days of gunbattles between government troops and a shadowy extremist group.
The Lebanese government has vowed to crush the “terrorist phenomenon” of Fatah al-Islam, a group of Sunni Islamists which emerged only late last year.
Kouchner, a prominent leftwinger and humanitarian, is due to meet with Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, parliament speaker Nabih Berri and other leading politicians.
Siniora’s rump anti-Syrian cabinet has received staunch backing from France since the departure of six pro-Damascus ministers last November.
Former president Jacques Chirac was a close friend of billionaire Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri, who was killed in a 2005 bombing widely blamed on Syria.
I literally get giddy when I think about this guy running France.
Go, Sarko. They elected a man, not a surrender monkey! Quelle surprise.