French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday
that he was impatient for US president-elect Barack Obama to take office so
that the two of them could "change the world," dpa reported.
"We are eager to see him go to work so that we can change the world with
him," Sarkozy said during a stop in the city of Provins.
However, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned that Obama could not work
political miracles.
"He is an exceptional man," Kouchner said, "but he does not have
a magic wand."
Former French presidential candidate Segolene Royal claimed that she and her
campaign had inspired Obama during his successful run for the presidency.
"Yes, I inspired Obama and his teams copied us," Royal was quoted as
saying by the online edition of the daily Le Monde in Washington, where she was
to be the only French politician of note to take part in Obama's inauguration
later on Tuesday.
Royal said Obama's campaign aides took away several of her ideas, such as her
idea of the "citizen expert." In addition, she said Obama
"adapted" her tactic of participative democracy to the US political landscape, "which is very different from the European."
Royal said she came to Washington because she has "a sense of
history," and especially because "I wanted to experience it
differently than in front of the television screen."
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