He has to be taken at his word. Nicolas Sarkozy has announced a series of commitments on Europe; he has to respect those he has made personally, as well as those which were referred to by his direct collaborators. It would be too much to claim that European issues were at the centre of the election campaign, but they were much more visible than in the past.
Mr Sarkozy focused on them in two speeches - last winter in Brussels and on 21 February in Strasbourg. The Strasbourg speech contained...