While visiting the Bush summer residence on the Maine seacoast from his house in nearby New Hampshire, Sarkozy affirmed proudly, “It has been 250 years that France and the United States have been allies and friends.”

“Bush-Sarkozy : Climate of detente between France and the United States,” headlined the leftwing daily Le Monde, adding, “The French President desires ‘more balanced relations’ between the two countries.” Logical yes, but a bitter pill for much of the left.

Speaking of the seacoast Summit at the Bush home in Kennebunkport Maine, Le Monde added, “A sign of the rehabilitation France/American, was the lunch at Kennebunkport organized family style in his honor. This scenario would be unimaginable with Jacques Chirac after his ‘betrayal’ over Iraq.” The Bush family (including George the Father and George W) hosted a lobster picnic and boating for the visiting French delegation.

Last September as a Presidential candidate, Nicholas Sarkozy visited Ground Zero in New York and expressed his solidarity with America over the 2001 terrorist attacks. His enthusiastic support for America caused a near political rupture with his former mentor Jacques Chirac.

After the often tempestuous political ties between Paris and Washington during the Chirac era mostly over Iraq, the new President has infused optimism and confidence to Franco/American relations. Nicholas Sarkozy is unapologetically pro-American and reflects a hoped for dynamism of a new France, not a brooding and embittered reaction to the rise of U.S. “hyperpower,” by willing to cozy up to Moscow and Beijing as a counterforce to American influence.

Sarkozy’s trip to the USA means more than just fun in New Hampshire. It remains in the national interests of both France and the USA to overcome the frosty relations of recent years. After all France remains one of America’s oldest allies, a vital member of the European Union, and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Yet even during the strained personal ties between Jacques Chirac and George W. Bush, as this column always stressed, the USA and France were and still are cooperating on key international issues such as anti-terrorism, reducing Syria’s role in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iran, and Darfur. While Washington won’t expect pro-active political or military support in Iraq, nor will Paris actively oppose or politically thwart the U.S. in the Middle East.

For the Bush Administration, Nicholas Sarkozy is in the same category of new conservative European leaders, such as Germany’s Angela Merkel, who choose to be close to the United States on the international scene.

Known as Super Sarko or the Sarkozy the Energizer Bunny, the French president carries less of the political baggage of the past. He personally admires America as a land of freedom and economic opportunity. Indeed many of his initiatives are pro-active and entrepreneurially based. His high political ratings afford him maneuver space. A new poll in the Le Figaro magazine shows him at 64 percent positive including 40 percent among the opposition Socialists! Still he just finished his first hundred days in the Elysee Palace so the honeymoon continues.

As the conservative weekly Valeurs Actuelles confides, “ However it remains that his large support in opinion is fragile. What makes his popularity remains his omnipresence, but the media is also his Achilles heel. Doubts can get into the French over his real efficiency…having been elected on the theme of change, Sarkozy is condemned to succeed.”

Importantly revitalizing ties with Washington come at a key time in Europe; the French have calculated that the close relationship between Bush and Tony Blair is in the past. Thus France is poised to outmaneuver the United Kingdom and move closer to the USA and Israel, while at the same time maintain its cherished political independence on Iraq.

Naturally vacation diplomacy has its limits. The good cheer of Kennebunkport and New Hampshire will almost certainly be put to the test in the global caldron of crises. Come September, President Sarkozy returns to the U.S. for the General Assembly of the United Nations where he shall formally outline French policy. Come September, all will be anxiously watching his deeds