Translated material
Where Sarkozy woke up
The French president's dream came true in Moscow
“Waking up and seeing Red Square means a lot to me, I think you will understand,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy began negotiations with its owner yesterday in the Kremlin Representative Office in such a slightly intimate tone. Vladimir Putin responded to these confessions with a barely noticeable smile, expressing both approval and distrust. “This is my first time in the Kremlin, I have dreamed of visiting the Kremlin for a very, very long time,” the guest continued, as if trying to dispel this mistrust.Mr. Sarkozy walked into the office with the somewhat unusual gait of a cavalryman, constrained by the need to put on unusual high-heeled shoes instead of seemingly ordinary boots. As a result, when walking, at first glance, the upper part of his body was somewhat ahead of the lower. When he approached Vladimir Putin, who was waiting for him in the center of the hall with his hand extended in greeting, it turned out that both presidents were absolutely the same height. Mr. Sarkozy's face flashed with a dazzling smile, which, as it seemed, did not disappear until the end of the protocol part of the meeting. During these few minutes, the French president briefly shared his impressions of his trip to Moscow State Technical University yesterday morning. Bauman, where he gave a lecture and answered questions from students. “Wonderful Russian young people, they want to live, to hope,” Mr. Sarkozy noted, “I told them, I want there to be a partnership between Russia and France.” “I want to discuss the terms of this partnership with you,” the French president told Putin gallantly but firmly. And he proposed to appoint special representatives for this in Moscow and Paris. These were the last words the journalists heard; they were asked to leave the office.
They never heard Putin say “you” to Sarkozy as confidently as Sarkozy said to Putin. It must be said that the speed with which both presidents - one starting his service in this post, and the second ending it - switched to "you" puzzled the French press no less than the Russian one. “This reminds me of Chirac’s style,” remarked one of her French colleagues. “So the initiative came from Sarkozy?” The colleague shrugged: “They started saying ‘you’ to each other the day before in Novo-Ogarevo in the few minutes that they spent at the very beginning of the meeting, before Putin put Sarkozy in his Mercedes and took him for a ride.” It turned out that Putin had separated his bodyguards from the car, allowing only two translators to sit there.
Then, when informal negotiations began in the “village” (as the country residence in Novo-Ogarevo is called in Putin’s circle), Putin proposed that they continue in this format - one-on-one - further. Mr. Sarkozy insisted on the participation of his diplomatic adviser, Jean David Levit, until May of this year, the French Ambassador in Washington, in the conversation.
Late in the evening of October 9, after returning from the “village,” Nicolas Sarkozy told French journalists about how this conversation took place. First, he shared with them “Putin’s knowledge of the name of his successor, the presidential candidate of Russia.” “Did he tell you this name?” Nicolas Sarkozy smiled meaningfully in response... He also said that he raised the issue with Putin about Georgia, about the incident that happened on September 6 with a missile that , according to Tbilisi, was fired from a Russian plane into Georgian territory . In the words of the French President, this was “a bad initiative.” Mr. Sarkozy told the Russian president that he did not agree with the thesis about the “return of the Cold War,” but believed that tensions between East and West could lead to “wrong decisions, equally bad for both sides.” Also, according to Mr. Sarkozy, he told Putin that joint use of the radar station in Gabala with the United States is a “good idea,” and negotiations with the Americans must be continued. But they didn’t have time to talk about the situation in Ukraine - there were a lot of other important topics to discuss, Mr. Sarkozy told his reporters.
The President of France prepared for his working visit to Moscow very thoroughly. In the last few days before “waking up and seeing Red Square,” he received Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko at the Elysee Palace (for the sake of this meeting, Mr. Yushchenko refused a trip to Dushanbe for the CIS summit). Then, on the eve of his flight to Moscow, he met with the President of Poland Lech Kaczynski and the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Mirek Topolanek. Thus, the French President knew first-hand the attitude of Warsaw and Prague towards the deployment of American missile defense systems on their territory. Nicolas Sarkozy also visited Budapest, where he supported Hungary’s participation in the Nabucco gas pipeline project, lobbied by the United States and the EU, to transport gas from Iran, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, bypassing Russian territory.
Nicolas Sarkozy seems similar to Vladimir Putin not only in height and not only, as many representatives of the fair sex claim, in his sex appeal, but, obviously, also in his pragmatism, to say the least. Yesterday students of MSTU im. Bauman to be glad that Mr. Sarkozy is paying a visit to Russia before the United States, which means he is “our Russian friend,” as the French president somewhat disappointed them. “I am a friend of the United States,” Nicolas Sarkozy said firmly. Then he paused and added: “But that doesn’t mean he’s a vassal.” And to make it completely clear, he explained: “Like in any family, we have disagreements in terms of our attitude towards America.”
Another student asked the guest whether Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov was detained in Courchevel in January of this year in order to limit Russian business in France? After all, it was rumored that Nicolas Sarkozy, who was then the Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of France, was personally behind the persecution of Prokhorov. In response, Mr. Sarkozy, who had already become president, gave a lecture to students about independent justice, about freedom of the press in France, and about the fact that he, Sarkozy personally, even advocates the “redundancy” of such freedom, even more than just its “sufficiency.” .. The President of France invited young Russians to come to France to see how many different things journalists write about him. Mr. Sarkozy's listeners were convinced that he was talking about France, but he meant Russia with its justice and freedom of the media...
At the press conference, both presidents were asked what their stated “convergence” in positions on Iran meant. Their answers did not clarify this understanding. Vladimir Putin said that Russia has no evidence that Tehran is developing nuclear weapons, and, therefore, Iran has no such plans. The French president responded in his own way: “We have a slightly different analysis, but the main thing is that Iran is ready to cooperate.” All this is very important on the eve of Mr. Putin’s trip to Iran, Nicolas Sarkozy emphasized (Putin will visit Tehran on October 16).
A clear continuation of the mutual discussions between the presidents was their answers to questions about the possibility of exchanging assets between Russian and French companies. Mr. Sarkozy expressed the desire of French investors to enter the capital of Gazrom. Putin was not against it, but only if the penetration was “mutual, honest and transparent.” There is and will not be any taboo on Gazprom’s participation in the capital of French companies,” the guest responded quickly and readily...
Then a journalist from the French newspaper Libération asked her president about his upcoming meeting with human rights activists from the Russian Memorial society, and Putin - how he felt about it. For some reason, Mr. Sarkozy began to say that he warned Putin about this meeting, who replied that when I invite, I never dictate who can or cannot be met with. To this, Sarkozy added that “he is not going to make any reproaches against the Russian authorities; we must take into account the specifics of Russian history.” Vladimir Putin also answered the journalist: “It’s good that there are organizations in the world (like Memorial - Ed. ), they point out the authorities’ mistakes; it’s bad when they are used as a means of political pressure...” The Russian president also said that he “maybe not as often as we would like” with Memorial representatives, but meets within the framework of the Presidential Council for Interaction with Civil Society that he created.
Before leaving, Mr. Sarkozy actually met at the French Embassy in Moscow with Russian human rights activists from Memorial, Oleg Orlov, Svetlana Gannushkina and Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya. According to Mr. Orlov, for half an hour Nicolas Sarkozy listened carefully to their opinions on the situation with media freedom in Russia, the situation of non-governmental organizations, and the situation in the North Caucasus. Human rights activists also shared their concerns regarding the revision of the official interpretation of “historical memory” in Russia... Mr. Sarkozy expressed support for the activities of Memorial and advised, if necessary, to turn to it for assistance. Oleg Orlov called the meeting “symbolic; the very fact that it took place is important,” he said.
The invitation made by Nicolas Sarkozy to Vladimir Putin to make his first foreign visit to France after leaving the presidential post can also be considered symbolic. “I would be happy if he responded to my invitation,” Sarkozy said, smiling broadly and turning to Putin. The owner of the Kremlin did not reveal his reaction to the guest’s subsequent message, saying that it seemed to him that this invitation had been “accepted.”