John Kerry in Paris
Source: Xinhua, english.news.cn
John Kerry in Paris, Mali operation high on agenda
France's President Francois Hollande (1st R) meets with visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (2nd R) at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris, France, Feb. 27, 2013.
PARIS, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The newly appointed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Paris on Wednesday for talks with French officials, with Paris-led military operation in Mali expected to top his agenda.
Early in the morning, French President Francois Hollande met the U.S. top diplomat to "talk about the whole range of bilateral and transatlantic relations and the major international issues," the foreign ministry said.
Kerry will have lunch with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius to discuss Paris military operation in Mali "on which (Paris and Washington) are cooperating very closely."
France wants more U.S. and European help, including the U.S. aerial refueling capability for French planes, analysts said. However, the United States was long reluctant to decide any military action in the West African country.
Read more: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-02/27/c_132196744.htm
Didn't realize Hollande was so petit. Maybe he can find an old pair of Sarko's elevator shoes?
= new reply since forum marked as read
back in the bad old days:
And now it's our turn to come up with les noms drôles ...
complaining about her French vocabulary lessons...
That's "you're welcome" in Spanish. 
Thanks for that complement! I am good one. 
Secretary of state nominee John Kerry has strong ties to France, a fact that hindered his 2004 presidential bid. FRANCE 24 takes a closer look at how this “French connection” has been perceived on both sides of the Atlantic.
Reacting to President Barack Obama’s recent nomination of John Kerry as the next US secretary of state, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius praised his future counterpart’s “personal commitment to Franco-American friendship”.
The comment was a reference to a poorly-kept “secret” that dogged the former Democratic presidential candidate during his bid to unseat then-incumbent George W. Bush in 2004: Kerry has a French connection.
John Kerry was attacked for his French connections during 2004 presidential campaign
The Massachusetts senator attended a Swiss boarding school as a child, learning to speak fluent French –which reportedly worked wonders in courting his wife, Teresa Heinz, whose parents were Portuguese.
He spent summers at his maternal grandparents’ luxurious home in Saint-Briac-sur-Mer, a village in the north-western coastal region of Brittany. And he counts Brice Lalonde, a former French green party leader and an environment minister in the early 1990s, as one of his first cousins (Lalonde did not respond to an interview request for this article).
Kerry’s ties to France are indeed part of the reason that “reactions to his nomination have been extremely positive on both the right and left in France,” according to Nicole Bacharan, a specialist in French-American relations and national fellow at Stanford’s public policy think tank, the Hoover Institution.
“He’s obviously very competent and very knowledgeable about foreign policy,” Bacharan said. “But of course the French like him especially because he knows France well and speaks good French.”
Kerry’s strong relationship with France will likely be an advantage in his future as America's top diplomat, particularly in Europe. “When you’re secretary of state, it’s a good thing to be perceived as worldly and sophisticated,” Bacharan noted.
‘Jean Chéri’
But the politician’s “Frenchness” has not always been an advantage. While running for president in 2004, Kerry was ridiculed by Republicans for his closeness to the country seen as having spurned the US by refusing to participate in the Iraq war –though Kerry himself initially voted in favour of the war.
Donald Evans, a commerce secretary under Bush, quipped that Kerry was “of a different political stripe and looks French”, and then-House majority leader Tom DeLay kicked off several speeches to constituents by saying: “Hi. Or, as John Kerry might say, ‘Bonjour’”.
Meanwhile, right-wing pundits, radio and TV hosts at the time often mockingly referred to Kerry as “Monsieur Kerry”, “Jean Chéri”, or “Jean-François Kerry”.
Mindful that any perceived affection for a nation considered a fair-weather ally could be a major liability, Kerry, for the duration of his campaign, largely avoided any reference to his past in France or his attachment to the country, its language, or culture. It was reported that he stopped conversing with French correspondents in French, something he had done with much-noted pleasure for many months.
Though French-American relations have warmed considerably since 2004, Kerry is likely to keep a relatively low profile when it comes to his Gallic "roots". “I don’t think he’ll flash his French connection other than when he’s in France,” Bacharan predicted. “It’s generally not a good thing for a US politician to flaunt any sort of Frenchness.”
http://www.france24.com/en/20121225-monsieur-john-kerry-french-connection
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looks like ‘Jean Chéri’ gets ‘le dernier rire’ . . .
Although he is not as short as Sarkozy.
The problem, said the official, who wished to remain anonymous, is that Obama has maintained a firm grip on those areas of foreign policy. “Many of the issues we know [Kerry] to care most about, for example Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the post-Arab-uprising Middle East, have been largely in the preserve of the White House and Department of Defence,” he noted.
Many prominent foreign policy experts doubt that Obama will give Kerry the leeway he may seek. “Obama is the most withholding foreign policy president since Richard Nixon,” wrote Aaron David Miller, former advisor and negotiator for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, on news site POLITICO this week. “He dominates; he doesn’t delegate.”
