Newpapers : 15th December

France hails Sarkozy, European saviour -- Germany doesn't . Chearles Bremner, The Times (en)
" ... The hyper-active President is convinced that he has galvanised Europe and given it new power in the world with deft management of the financial crash and the other emergencies, such as the Russia-Georgia war in August. Close partnership with Britain's Gordon Brown is part of the new European power balance, says Sarkozy ...
... The satisfaction in Paris is not dimmed by the glaring failure of the French Euro-presidency: Sarkozy's cold war with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor ...
... She calls him the Energizer Bunny (Lapin Duracell in French) and she has watched the films of Louis de Funès for clues to understanding the ever-agitated French president. (De Funès, a brilliant and much-loved comic actor, played the manic, excitable vain Frenchman in many hit films ...
... Spiegel magazine has just explained that the Chancellor sees Sarkozy as "an unfeasibly vain Jack-in-the-box...She has so far failed to find a way to handle him....She has watched de Funès' films... but she has nothing to counter him apart from her eternal impassiveness. Her fist may be clenched but she keeps it in her pocket." ...

Sarkozy praised for Brussels agreement. Tony Barber, The FT (en)
" ... Meanwhile, in Brussels and in EU national capitals from Dublin to Vilnius, officials say that memories of France under Jacques Chirac, Mr Sarkozy’s occasionally cantankerous predecessor, are fading fast ..."