The World

The closing press conferences at the G-20 yesterday gave a nice chance to compare and contrast the style of the French and American presidents. Obama was asked only one question about the G-20 itself; all the rest were about Iran, Afghanistan and health-care. He was his usual, polished, languid self – his answers are lucid and long, probably too long.

Sarkozy, by contrast, was a bundle of nervous energy and excitement. While Obama has two basic facial expressions – serious and beaming smile, Sarko’s face is in perpetual motion; grinning, grimacing, gurning. When one question struck him as eccentric, he just laughed, shrugged and rotated his finger by his ear – to show that he thought the questioner was batty. I can’t imagine Obama doing that.

Sarko’s press conference was in a much smaller room than the ballroom assigned to the US president, so it was possible to sit just a few feet from him. Unlike the American press corps, the French media seemed genuinely interested by the G20 and Sarkozy was postively enraptured. He proclaimed a “veritable revolution” in the regulation of banks, adding – “It’s really historic what’s happened. There’s no longer an Anglo-Saxon world and a European world. We’ve transcended that theoretical opposition.” Although he was too tactful to put it that bluntly, Sarko clearly thinks that it is the French model that has won out – he made the point several times that the new G20 rules on bonuses are based on laws already adopted in France. Another longstanding French goal, the crackdown on tax havens (which are very annoying if you are running a high-tax economy like France) is also now being advanced by the G20. “Tax havens, banking secrecy, that’s all finished”, trumpeted Sarko. 

He also obviously adores the G20, praising it as “the refoundation of international governance” and lauding its “fantastic” atmosphere. I said afterwards to a French colleague that Sarkozy had seemed euphoric. My colleague laughed and said that he is always like that, after big international summits.

I didn’t go to the Japanese briefing, partly because I don’t speak Japanese. But Yukio Hatoyama, the new prime minister, is rapidly revealing himself as the fun guy of the G20. Obama said that he was amazed and envious that Hatoyama had managed to sneak out to “Pamela’s Diner”, a famous Pittssburgh pancake house. And then when I got back to my hotel to watch the late night news, there was Hatoyama again – throwing out the first pitch at that night’s Pittsburgh Pirates game, clad in the home team’s uniform and cap. Perhaps Britain’s gloomy Gordon Brown could take some tips from his Japanese colleague.