Claeskrantz.se

Det kan vara värt att läsa den franska plan Carl Bildt prata om nedan. Det är grunden till en av USA oberoende europa arme som Frankrike bygger upp nedan. Oberoende av NATO och USA med förmåga till s.k Force Projection globalt i områden av intresse.

Det handlar bland annat om en fristående underrättelse och logistik infrastruktur som i NATO är helt beroende av USA.

Som vanligt sker detta förstås utan att de svenska partierna eller de s.k säkerhetspolitisk ansvarig diskuterar vad som händer i Europa i en allmänn debatt inrikes.

Vore det inte ironiskt om en ny Fransk-Svensk
allians skapades likt den som fanns under större delen av den svenska
stormakts perioden. Carl Bild som Axel Oxenstierna tror jag dock inte
på även om politiken drivs på samma sätt utanför riksdagen.

Alla Dessa Dagar

Och mitt i allt detta hanns det också med en ganska grundlig genomgång av tankarna bakom den stora revision av Frankrikes försvars- och säkerhetspolitik som nyligen genomförts. Ett imponerande arbete av stor också europeisk betydelse.

Latest news – Defence and security: Head of State sets course – French Prime minister – French Government Portal

On 17 June, Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled the conclusions of the White Paper on defence and national security, in front of 3,000 military personnel gathered at Porte de Versailles, Paris. The new White Paper outlines France’s strategy for the next fifteen years.

Decision to link national security and defence. Since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and the attacks on 11 September 2001, the threats have become vaguer and greater in number – cyberterrorism, nuclear proliferation, health crises. They demand better coordination between international and national security forces. The objective is therefore to bring together and coordinate various public policies: defence, national security, diplomacy and economic.

A Defence and National Security Council has been set up to take overall responsibility for security issues. It shall bring together under the aegis of the French President, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministers of the Interior, Defence, Economy and Budget. It shall be able to meet in specialist groups.

The national security strategy is based around five strategic functions: knowledge and anticipation, prevention, deterrence, protection and intervention. The combination of these five functions must be flexible and be able to evolve over time, adapting to changes in the strategic environment. The White Paper shall be updated regularly before each new law on military planning or national security.

Strengthening intelligence activities. The White Paper emphasises the new “knowledge and anticipation” functions.

- a National Intelligence Council shall be set up. Answerable to the Head of State, it shall define the broad guidelines allocated to the different departments and plan objectives and resources;

- a national intelligence coordinator shall appointed to the President. Around this coordinator, ten experts shall represent the ministries concerned: Foreign Affairs, Defence and Interior;

- spending on military satellites shall double by 2020. The White Paper plans the launch of new programmes, particularly in the field of intelligence-anticipation (observation, electronic eavesdropping, early warning), on land, at sea and in the air, with in particular the development of surveillance and armed drones, as well as both offensive and defensive cyber-war capabilities.

The new formats of the armed forces.

- an operational ground force of 88,000 men, enabling a force-projection capability of 30,000 soldiers with six months’ notice, 5,000 soldiers on permanent operational alert, and the capability to mobilise 10,000 soldiers on the national territory to support civilian authorities in case of a major crisis;

- an aircraft-carrier group, with full air group, 18 frigates, six nuclear-powered attack submarines and the capability to deploy one or two naval groups either for amphibious operations or for the protection of sea lines;

- a joint fleet of 300 combat aircraft.

Resources. France shall devote a major financial effort to its defence, consistent with the priorities and choices made for its operational capabilities. Defence spending shall not decrease. During the initial period annual resources (excluding pension charges,) shall be constant in volume, that is, increasing at the same pace as inflation. They could include exceptional resources.

Then, during a second phase, starting in the year 2012, the budget shall increase at the pace of 1% per year in volume, that is, 1% above the inflation rate. Between now and 2020, the aggregate effort devoted to defence excluding pensions shall amount to 377 billion Euros. In parallel, restructuring shall lead to considerable decrease in staff over six or seven years and operating cost reductions in the Ministry and the armed forces. The resulting savings shall be totally reinvested in the procurement budget which shall increase from an average of 15.5 billion Euros in past years to 18 billion Euros on average per year for the period 2009-2020, and also in the improvement of defence personnel training and living conditions.

Protection of the population, a priority. The goal is to protect the nation in times of major crisis while increasing its resilience defined as the “capability of public authorities and French society to respond to a major crisis and rapidly restore normal functioning.” Reinforcing resilience requires a change in the means and methods of surveillance used over the national territory including land, sea, air and now space and to develop a faster and wider-ranging response capability for French public authorities. Communication and information systems and civil warning systems shall lie at the centre of the crisis management and preparedness system. One new aspect is that operational goals in protection missions are now assigned jointly to internal security services, civil security services and the armed forces.

Conflict prevention and intervention capabilities. The White Paper provides for their concentration on a priority geographical axis from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, the Arab-Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. This axis corresponds to the areas where the risks related to the strategic interests of France and Europe are highest. The White Paper also takes account of the growing importance of Asia for national security and favours both presence and cooperation in this direction from the Indian Ocean. In parallel, France shall preserve its prevention and action capabilities on the Western and Eastern seaboards of the African continent as well as in the Sahel, in particular to fight against trafficking and acts of terrorism. The armed forces shall also have major assets in the West-Indies-French Guyana zone to be used for the protection of the Kourou space centre and the fight against narcotics trafficking. The Gendarmerie and civil security forces shall be reinforced in the DOM-COM (overseas departments and territories).

Nuclear deterrence. The sole purpose of the nuclear deterrent is to prevent any outside aggression against the vital interests of the nation. France must have an autonomous and sufficiently wide and diversified range of assets and options: ballistic missiles and airborne missiles. France has taken initiatives in the area of nuclear disarmament and shall continue to do so. France shall be particularly active in the fight against the proliferation of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons as well as the delivery missiles.

European ambition is a priority. Making the European Union a major player in crisis management and international security is one of the central tenets of the security policy. France wants Europe to be equipped with the corresponding military and civilian capability.

Strengthening France’s position in NATO. The White Paper emphasises that the European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance are complementary. France shall commit itself to the renovation of NATO in particular on the occasion of NATO’s 60th anniversary, to be celebrated in 2009. France shall play a full part in the structures of NATO. This evolution shall go hand in hand with the reinforcement of the European Union in the area of crisis management and the search for a new balance between Americans and Europeans within NATO. As regards the position of France, the White Paper recalls the three main principles in direct continuity with those defined by General de Gaulle: complete independence of our nuclear forces; French authorities must retain full freedom of assessment, which implies the absence of automatic military commitment and the maintenance of assets allowing for strategic autonomy in particular by increasing our intelligence capabilities; and lastly, permanent freedom of decision which means that no French forces shall be permanently placed under NATO command in peace time.

Med tanke på att Frankrik blivit den ledande europeiska nationen som arbetar emot Iran som en kärnteknologi nation med motivet att man vill förhindra spridningen av kärnvapen hör det till paradoxerna att Frankrike samtidig säljer kärnteknologi eller reaktorer till snart alla länder i mellanöstern utom möjligen Iran.

Den enkla sanningen är att det finns inga länder som kan garantera att teknologi inte läcker ut eller att någon gång i framtiden den inte kommer att missbrukas. Men business går före säkerhet och kärnkraftsindustrin är stor i frankrike. Liksom oljeindustrin.

Sen var det ju förövrigt Frankrike och tyskland som byggde upp det som var Iraks enda kärnkraftverk. Innan Israelerna bombade det.

The recent war games in the Gulf with France, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are connected to French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s nuclear diplomacy. Sarkozy has been leveraging France’s leading civilian nuclear technology to gain diplomatic, commercial and military advantages with countries in the Middle East, as well parts of Africa and Asia.

In response, nonproliferation experts have voiced their unease at the idea of exporting potentially nuclear bomb-usable technologies to proliferation-prone regions. In particular, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, recently expressed concern that Sarkozy’s aggressive sales campaign in the Muslim world was moving ”too fast.” A number of German politicians have advised France to ”weigh the risks,” especially when it comes to nuclear deals with the Libyan regime of Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Despite these fears, Sarkozy’s nuclear energy proselytizing will not convert any new countries to acquiring nuclear weapons any time soon, if ever, and France will face financial and technical hurdles in building many nuclear power plants in these countries.

Since taking office last May, Sarkozy has signed deals worth billions of dollars to build nuclear power reactors or offer technical advice to a number of Arab states, including Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Indonesia and Turkey also have considered the purchase of such technology from France. Although the French nuclear group Areva reported strong annual profits in 2007 and pledged to double in size within the next five years, serious constraints limit the realization of the global promises made by Sarkozy and Areva’s chief executive, Anne Lauvergeon. Aside from the obvious political and financial barriers that complicate the construction of nuclear power plants, many practical difficulties stand between France and its ambitious goals in the developing world.

France’s nuclear diplomacy – International Herald Tribune

Nicolas Sarkozy has been raising quite a few eyebrows since he assumed the presidency, not least by leveraging French civilian nuclear expertise to gain diplomatic advantage in the Middle East. This week, the International Herald Tribune noted ”unease” among nonproliferation experts ”at the idea of exporting potentially nuclear-bomb usable technologies to proliferation-prone regions.” The article also notes that, even putting proliferation concerns aside, obstacles to the large-scale spread of nuclear power exist — some of which include high infrastructure costs, waste management issues, and personnel shortages.

France is not the only country seeking ways to surmount such obstacles, though. The U.S.-led Global Nuclear Energy Partnership is one of the best known of these initiatives. The core proposal behind GNEP is to employ advanced reprocessing technology to close the nuclear fuel cycle as much as possible. This entails recycling burnt nuclear fuel over and over until it is no longer useful for producing electricity or weapons. In so doing, GNEP aims to increase effective fuel supplies, decrease the amount of waste produced by nuclear power plants, and reduce the danger of nuclear proliferation. As initially conceived, existing nuclear exporters would (exclusively) perform enrichment and reprocessing services and provide them to any GNEP partner that agreed to refrain from enriching or reprocessing fuel on its own.

France isn’t the only one pushing nuclear power | FP Passport

http://www.politikerbloggen.se/2008/03/17/8548/

En radikal tanke kanske men är det inte dags att fundera på ett Europa

parti. Uppenbarligen är det så att Europa kommer aldrig att fungera om enbart trångsynta nationella och partipolitiska intressen ska

styra. Likadant en genuin reform som ger förändrar EU-parlamentet och ger det den folkliga anknytning som saknas.

Om inte

annat kan inte vår flygande utrikesminister använda sig att det nätverk han säg ha för att driva en mycket mer aktiv

Europapolitik. Och kanske inte bokstavligen men mentalt klubba in lite förnuft i en del trilskande eu politiker.

href="http://www.svd.se/nyheter/utrikes/artikel_520087.svd">SvD » Utrikes » Många sprickor i Europas

fasad

Det planerade euro-afrikanska toppmötet den 8
december

splittrar redan EU-kretsen. Portugal har med stöd av bland
annat Frankrike och Tyskland ambitionen att genomföra mötet även

om
Zimbabwes Robert Mugabe skulle delta. Gordon Brown har sedan länge
förklarat att han i så fall bojkottar mötet. Statsminister

Fredrik
Reinfeldt framför förhoppningar om att EU kollektivt skulle kunna
övertala Mugabe att stanna hemma, men har hittills inte

sagt att han
skulle följa Gordon Browns linje.

Två dagar senare, den 10 december, får FN:s säkerhetsråd rapporten
om

Kosovos framtida status. Det är en säker gissning att oavsett vilket
resultat som då föreligger så kommer EU-kretsen att splittras i

olika
läger. Några är beredda att erkänna ett självständigt Kosovo, andra
vägrar principiellt. Samtidigt planeras den största EU-

missionen
någonsin för Kosovo.

En tung intern EU-fråga skulle komma på bordet den
5 december, men

motsättningarna är så hårda i EU-kommissionen att
ordföranden José Manuel Barroso flyttat den till nästa år. Tidigast den
23

januari presenteras det kontroversiella paketet med förslag till hur
energi- och klimatpolitikens allmänna målen skall omsättas

i
verkligheten och hur bördorna skall fördelas på de 27 medlemsländerna.
Det blir nykomlingen Slovenien som under våren 2008 får

den
utomordentligt krävande uppgiften att leda den komplicerade
förhandlingen.

Det blir också Sloveniens uppgift att till

EU-toppmötet i mars lägga
fram en strategi för en gemensam hållning i förhållande till
konkurrensen på de globala marknaderna.

Skall EU, som Nicolas Sarkozy
vill, utgöra en stötdämpare som genom protektionistiska åtgärder
skyddar medborgarna från

globaliseringen? Eller skall EU, som Gordon
Brown vill, bekämpa protektionismen eftersom den är ett kostsamt och
ineffektivt sätt

att möta globaliseringen på?

BildtBlog

Ytterligare en i raden av artiklar som ser ett anfall på Iran som nära förestående. I oktober finns det t ex 3 hangarfartygsgrupper samlade i persiska viken. Något som militära experter angett som en förutsättning för ett flygbombanfall mot Iran. I Irak bygger USA en case-file för att visa på att en stor del av de mer dödliga attackerna sker med Iransk hjälp och material. I israel har förberedelserna i stort gjorda för att hålla tillbaka Syrien och hezbollah. I Europa är Frankrike och med dom även Tyskland engagerade i en politk för störtandet av Irans regering. Det intressant med den israeliska bombanfallet mot Syrien är att inga andra arabländer sade något. I grunden är det en allians med USA, Israel, och Väst-Europa som samlas mot Iran, Syrien, Ryssland och troligen Kina. För att bestämma kontrollen över mellanöstern i stort. Det egentliga hotet är inte att Iran skulle ha kärnvapen. Det är Irans ambitioner att vara den regional stormakten i persiska viken och därmed utmana USAs kontroll.

USA gick i krig mot Saddam Hussein när hans trupper stod vid gränsen mot de saudiska oljefälten. Idag är Iran i praktiken granne med samma fält tack vare USAs schizofrena politik och det katastrofala misslyckandet med Irak invasionen. Då logiskt nog vill Bush adminstrationen starta ett nytt krig som skulle dra in hela mellanöstern.

Läs mer i asia times
Relations between Russia and the United States will be put to the severe test in the coming weeks as there are growing signs that the US has decided, or has almost decided, to launch a military strike against Iran.

Russian observers do not rule out that the administration of US President George W Bush is yet to think through its policy on Iran, and the spate of media ”leaks” keeps Tehran and the world community guessing. They analyze that a US military intervention would become inevitable unless Iran relented in its regional policy in Iraq. It is inconceivable for the US to leave its Arab allies in the region to face Iran single-handed.

But then, Russian experts do not visualize that the US has reached anywhere near the point where it can claim the security situation has been stabilized and political reconciliation achieved, which would allow a complete withdrawal of troops. On the contrary, they see the situation in Iraq continuing to deteriorate.

Moscow would weigh that the real US agenda is aimed at ”regime change” in Iran. Washington has more or less ensured that all military equipment (three aircraft-carrier battle groups) necessary for an air and sea strike against Iran are already in position in the Persian Gulf. The Bush administration has launched a concerted campaign for mobilizing domestic opinion in the US for an attack on Iran.

Bush has a new cockiness about him, and Moscow wouldn’t be the only capital to notice. He has certainly lost his fear of the Democrat-dominated Congress on Capitol Hill. To be sure, he is step-by-step making a case for war. Commentator Patrick Buchanan wrote recently, ”Confident of victory this fall on the Hill, Bush is now moving into Phase III in his ‘war on terror’: first Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Iran.”

In Moscow’s perception, therefore, the next two to three months will be most critical, even as Iran’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) enters a crucial phase.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to go ahead with his visit to Tehran on October 16, much to the chagrin of Washington. The visit is in connection with the summit of the Caspian states (Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran) that is to take place in Iran, but Putin is scheduled to hold ”bilaterals” as well with the Iranian leadership. This will be Putin’s first visit to Iran.

Russian stance unchanged
At a joint press conference with visiting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in Moscow on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov explained the Russian position on the Iran nuclear issue. He made it clear at the outset that Moscow is second to none in insisting on preventing the nuclear non-proliferation regime from being violated by Iran.

In other words, Russia wouldn’t countenance a ”nuclear Iran”. But having said that, Lavrov added that the problem has to be solved in accordance with international law. In other words, Moscow will reject any ”unilateralism” on the part of Washington.

Second, Lavrov argued that the steps taken by the international community so far – in the direction of the IAEA board of governors’ decisions and the United Nations Security Council decisions – have proved ”effective”. This is borne out by the fact that last month Iran and the IAEA agreed to address outstanding issues conclusively; the two sides elaborated their agreement in an appropriate document. Lavrov said that in Moscow’s estimation, the implementation of this document is proceeding satisfactorily and ”we want this process to conclude unimpeded”.

Third, Lavrov spoke in strong support of the IAEA’s professional capabilities and asserted, ”We will rely upon the professional assessments of the experts from the IAEA.” He added a punch line: ”We remember well what ignoring the professional opinion of this agency [IAEA] led to in the situation vis-a-vis Iraq four years ago.” He virtually anticipated the US strategy, which aims at discrediting the IAEA and sidelining it on the Iran issue, if not elbowing it out of altogether, so that the UN Security Council gets into the driving seat.

Fourth, Lavrov spoke emphatically against any military attack on Iran and instead stressed the ”necessity to conduct negotiations in a persistent and consistent manner”.

Fifth, what was most interesting about Lavrov’s statement was that he revisited the big-power discussions last year leading to the creation of the so-called Five Plus One format. (This comprises the five permanent members of the Security Council – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the US – plus Germany.)
He recalled the understanding given by Washington at that time to Moscow and Beijing to the effect that the Security Council’s involvement on the Iran issue would be with ”a sole objective – to back the IAEA and ensure Iran’s compliance with the IAEA”.

Lavrov’s message to the Bush administration was plain: ”Do not arbitrarily shift the goalposts now.”

Lavrov continued, ”We remain committed to this original agreement on the understanding that the Security Council will not be forced to go beyond support of the IAEA.” And, ”The IAEA is now satisfied with the way Iran is implementing the accords on closing the outstanding issues on its nuclear file.”

Lavrov in effect said nyet to Washington’s latest move for tightening up the sanctions against Iran via yet another Security Council resolution. This echoed the statement attributed to an unnamed ”senior Kremlin official in Moscow” a week earlier, who told The Financial Times of London, ”As far as Iran’s nuclear program is concerned, we have passed resolutions in the UN. So far, it’s enough.”

Finally, Lavrov criticized the move by the US and the European Union to impose unilateral sanctions against Iran. He reminded the Western capitals that the original understanding while forming the Five Plus One was to develop a comprehensive dialogue with Iran ”not only resolving all aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, but also on economic and commercial affairs and on regional security”.

Lavrov added, ”It was this kind of comprehensive approach that helped to unlock the situation surrounding the Korean nuclear program.” (Under the February agreement, in exchange for North Korea’s denuclearization and information on all its nuclear programs, the reclusive state will receive 950,000 tonnes of fuel oil for its thermal power-generating plants in addition to the 50,000 tonnes already delivered by South Korea for the closure of its only operational nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.)

If Kouchner’s visit to Moscow was to persuade Russia to fall in line with the US move to introduce a new Security Council resolution, things didn’t quite work that way. (Kouchner was scheduled to arrive in Washington on Friday; French President Nicolas Sarkozy is due to visit Moscow on October 11-12.)

Russia couldn’t be unaware that France is playing a double game. On the one hand, Sarkozy is closing ranks with the Bush administration’s policies toward Iran. On the other hand, France is using US-French rapprochement to share the spoils of Iraq’s oil wealth with US oil interests. France’s Total and the United States’ Chevron have agreed to collaborate on the Majnoon oilfields in Iraq.

The San Francisco Chronicle recently wrote, ”The building of a US-French consensus on Iraq is largely the result of the willingness of US oil interests to share the spoils with their European counterparts in exchange for their military and military backing of Washington’s foreign policy in the Middle East.” In the coming period, Moscow will have to factor the ”trans-Atlantic partnership” in dealing with the Iran nuclear issue.

Bernard Kouchner: Israel Got Lucky « The Fanonite

As I had said on another occasion, at times the worst
indicments come in the form of praise. Sarkozy’s choice for
Foreign Minister seems to have delighted some — the extreme-right
Free Republic, and Zionist hawk and anti-Arab/Islamophobic editor of The New Republic,
Martin Peretz, for instance. Peretz magnanimously forgives
Kouchner’s socialist past; it does not make ’make him
foul or “treyf” (non-Kosher)’,
because ”Kouchner and Sarkozy have intellectual and
political bonds that cross party lines”. He adds:

Andre Glucksmann, a good friend of Kouchner’s but
not by any means a socialist, may have planted the idea in
Sarkozy’s head [Glucksmann is also a ‘good friend’ of
Alain Finkielkraut, French Zionist comedian who passes for a
philosopher in the airier circles of Paris]. Or tilled the idea after
someone else or Sarkozy himself had raised it. After all, Glucksmann
had campaigned for Sarkozy, loyally and energetically. And the three share many values and convictions, whatever their party loyalties. They are friends of America, not at all friends, but antagonists of militant Islam, allies of the West as idea and reality, sympathetic, empathetic with Israel, aligned with the ex-communist democracies of Eastern Europe, etc. Enough said about this.

Sarkozy and Kouchner may agree on many things, but it would be unfair to consider them identical in their politics. New York Times reports:

Mr. Sarkozy opposed the American invasion of Iraq while
Mr. Kouchner, unlike most French people anywhere on the spectrum,
supported it.

Richard Holbrooke gushed with further praise for the man
described as ‘an effective early advocate of “humanitarian
intervention”’:

It will be very positive for U.S.-French relations,
because he does not come with a visceral anger towards the American
‘hyperpower.’ ”

Given the fabulous job NATO is carrying out in Afghanistan,
“Mr. Kouchner appears to support the maintenance of a strong
international — and French — presence in Afghanistan to
bring stability to the country”.

If all that weren’t enough to endear him to the average Brit
or American, he also always gets ”the best restaurant
tables”, and while Sarkozy’s appointed PM is an anglophile,
Kouchner is being described by NYT as an “Americaphile, a stance
that has led many in the Socialist Party to regard him as a
traitor.”

Friends and Foe (of Israel)

Sylvain Semhoun, the representative of Sarkozy’s Union for Popular Movement (UMP), told the Jerusalem Post, “Israel got lucky [with Kouchner]. Israelis should thank God it’s him and not Vedrine“.
Far from getting lucky however, it was the very heavy-handed approach
of the Israel Lobby that brought about this change. According to Le Canard Enchaine:

As soon as the leaders of CRIF (Conseil
représentatif des institutions juives de France) learned of
the prospect [of the appointment of Vedrine] from the new Head of
the State, Roger Cukierman, outgoing president of CRIF [the French Israel lobby], telephoned Claude Guéant with a violent warning.

“We held a meeting with CRIF, today, and the rumour circulated
of the nomination of Védrine to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs . That caused panic because, for us, Védrine is worse than the usual anti-Israelis of the Quay D’Orsay.”

A little later, Cukierman directly joined Sarkozy and said
to him that the Jewish community would take the nomination of
Védrine as a “casus belli”.

It should be understood that Cukierman and its friends had
campaigned across the country for Sarko explaining why the victory of
Ségolène would cause the return of Védrine to the
Quay!

So what makes Kouchner so much more appealing to Israel?

Kouchner, who was born to a Jewish father and a
Protestant mother, is close to right-wing Jewish MP Pierre Lellouche,
who advises Sarkozy on international issues. And Kouchner received an
honorary degree from Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba at the height
of the second intifada…

Kouchner at the diplomatic helm, coupled with the new American-style
National Security Adviser Jean-David Levitte – former French ambassador
to Washington – Sarkozy is making good on his pledge of support to his
American friends.

Kouchner and Levitte broke ranks with the French government in 2003,
refusing to oppose the invasion of Iraq. Kouchner published an article
in Le Monde arguing the positives in toppling Saddam Hussein.

Meanwhile in Israel, some have already registered their satisfaction:

Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu has said that with the
coming to power of his friend Sarkozy, he expects French Middle East
policy “will no longer be characterized by reflective
anti-Israelism.