French foreign policy under President Sarkozy

The election of 2007 brought up a new man on the political scene of France, a former leader of UMP (centre-right party) has been elected president.
Today, looking back and summarizing his two years in the office we can certainly conclude that his presidency has certainly brought a change in the style of French foreign policy. Sarkozy’s long political apprenticeship shaped his approach to the politics and relations in the multipolar world. He learned to maximize the support of his party and attract the attention of the media. He cultivated relationships with powerful and the less powerful ones. Last, but not least he did not hesitate to break off relationships at crucial moments.

In the first year in office, Sarkozy has employed all of these tactics in order to accumulate as much power in his hands as possible and to advance his foreign policy agenda, even though it often seemed that he did it to “limit” the power of his own prime minister.
He has launched initiatives on many fronts: with the European Union, to win approval of the Lisbon Treaty; with Libya, to free the Bulgarian nurses held captive there, secure contracts with the government, and enlist Qaddafi in his plan for a Mediterranean Union; with Russia, to discuss the supply of gas to Western Europe; with Africa, to initiate a new relationship with France’s former colonies; to China, to negotiate economic issues and the sale of nuclear reactors; with Lebanon, to register French support of the new government; with the United Kingdom, to convince the British with the notion that France under Sarkozy had become more England-friendly; with Germany, to smooth differences with Angela Merkel; with NATO, to begin consideration of full French integration into the military command structure; and with the United States, to signal a more flexible French position vis-à-vis American military engagements abroad.

But, which of these initiatives is