French Push U.S. on Global Crisis

Premier Is Extolling Sarkozy Plan to a Skeptical Obama Team

PARIS, March 21 -- Since immediately after the global economic crisis erupted seven months ago, France's whirlwind president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has been arguing that more regulation of international finance has to be a big part of the solution.

The message, however, has not been embraced as enthusiastically as he would like in Washington, where people are leery of putting power in the hands of international bureaucrats. So as preparations intensify for a key economic summit April 2 in London, Prime Minister François Fillon has been dispatched to New York and Washington this weekend to press the Obama administration to pay more attention to Sarkozy's repeated appeals.

The Group of 20 gathering, where President Obama will make his debut in global summitry, must be a "major event" demonstrating that he and other world leaders are able to act decisively to resolve the crisis and not just talk about it, Fillon said in an interview Friday shortly before boarding his plane.

"We have to issue a number of firm decisions," he added, previewing his message to Washington. "If the image of this round of the G-20 is an image of impotence, that would be dramatic."

Fillon usually leaves the spadework on Sarkozy's major diplomatic initiatives to Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner or Sarkozy's experienced foreign policy adviser, Jean-David Levitte. But Fillon said his meetings Monday, with Vice President Biden and Lawrence H. Summers, head of Obama's National Economic Council, were designed to "put the full weight of the French government" behind the suggestions on what should come out of the London summit.

Diplomatic exchanges between France and the United States have demonstrated the two countries share the same analysis about the crisis, he said, but not about what to do next to bring it under control. As have other European leaders, he said French officials sometimes feel the Obama administration's Treasury Department is not fielding a complete team and consequently is timid in the struggle to come up with strong proposals for the London summit.

The French government has been running at full speed on the crisis since September, he noted, while Obama has yet to get all his senior economic aides into position and the U.S. Embassy in Paris has been operating without an ambassador since the inauguration.

In Fillon's briefcase as he left was a joint stand adopted Friday by the 27-nation European Union, essentially endorsing Sarkozy's emphasis on reforming the international financial system and urging concrete steps in that direction from the Group of 20. Among other goals, the European leaders urged a decision to set up "colleges of supervisors" assigned to scrutinize all international financial institutions before the end of this year.

"Our objective is to go up a notch in regulation," Fillon said.

Swift and specific action is essential, Fillon said, because economic actors around the world are looking toward the London summit for signs that the major economic powers are working together to calm the storm. That hope, he suggested, has been behind recent signs that recovery may be in the air, including a rise in housing starts, an increase in shipping contracts and a prediction of rebound in 2010 from the usually taciturn head of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet.

Fillon, casual in a corduroy suit, was interviewed in his spacious office looking over a formal garden behind the Hotel Matignon, ornate headquarters of French prime ministers in the chic 7th arrondissement of Paris. Usually cast as a slugger in France's rancorous domestic politics and often overshadowed by Sarkozy's do-it-all approach, he expressed pleasure at the thought of traveling to the United States "to get a little air."

Fillon, 55, was born in Le Mans, home of the celebrated 24-hour auto endurance race, and has driven in some historic-car events at the circuit.