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Friday, April 17, 2009

French President Nicolas Sarkozy: Obama 'inexperienced and indecisive'

Many will wave away the opinion of France's President, Nicolas Sarkozy, calling the French "snobs", but it is always handy to know what other world leaders think of our president and in the eyes of Sarkozy, Obama "is not always up to standard on decision-making and efficiency."

From Times Online:

That, at any rate, is the world according to President Sarkozy, who has spent the week airing his unvarnished opinions of Barack Obama and an array of international politicians — abruptly ending France’s honeymoon with the US and needling Washington on several strategic issues.

In the latest in a stream of accounts from the Élysée Palace, Mr Sarkozy was quoted yesterday as telling an all-party group of MPs that Mr Obama was inexperienced and indecisive. “Obama has a subtle mind, very clever and very charismatic,” the French President said. “But he was elected two months ago and had never run a ministry. There are a certain number of things on which he has no position. And he is not always up to standard on decision-making and efficiency.”

The US President had underperformed on climate change when they met, Mr Sarkozy said, according to an account of the MP’s session in the newspaper Libération. “I told him, ‘I don’t think that you have quite understood what we are doing on carbon dioxide’.”


I would change one of Sarkozy's comments though from Obama has "never run a ministry" to Obama had "never run anything until he was handed a country to run." That would be more accurate.

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