Word: french
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...blurred the lines between personal friendships and presidential responsibilities. Following his election last year, for example, Sarkozy accepted the free use of a yacht owned by billionaire businessman Vincent Bolloré - a gift detractors call a potential conflict of interest, given the frequent intervention of the state into French economic affairs...
...Sarkozy has largely failed to respond to such accusations, or else has mocked them as the fabrications of rivals incapable of opposing him in parliament or at the ballot box. As is stands, the French President is getting less political scrutiny than the governor of Alaska...
...Bush Administration has long sought to isolate Syria in the hope of forcing greater cooperation with U.S. Middle East policy. And France's President Nicolas Sarkozy has sought to align French foreign policy far more closely with Washington's than his predecessor, President Jacques Chirac, had done. So why did Sarkozy show up in Damascus, Wednesday, as the first Western leader to visit Syria since 2005? Playing a diplomatic game that revives France's independent global standing even as it pursues some of the same goals...
...justifying his July invitation to Assad, Sarkozy noted that Damascus had signaled a willingness to work to end its isolation following the Hariri killing. Ahead of Wednesday's visit, meanwhile, French officials cited other examples of improved Syrian behavior, including its hosting of Lebanese prime minister Michel Suleimane last month, and plans for Syria to open its first-ever embassy in Beirut...
...There has long been a view within French diplomatic circles that Bashar al-Assad really wants to end Syria's habit of trouble-making and re-enter the community of nations, but until recently had been undermined by the older elements of the regime left over from his father's days," says one French official involved France's evolving relationship with Damascus. "He's not perfect, and there are still real problems with human rights and the treatment of political prisoners in Syria. Still, there are enough signs of change and a willingness to work together that...