Sarko à Moscou : le charme de Poutine et de “la cour des grands”…

Il est encore bien tôt pour tirer quelque leçon que ce soit de la visite de Sarkozy à Moscou, et surtout de sa rencontre avec Poutine. Le “surtout” qui peut paraître superflu marque surtout (!) l’aspect personnel de cette visite, – un aspect certainement très intéressant. On n'en doutera pas une seconde à la lecture de ce commentaire personnel de Charles Bremner, aujourd’hui dans le Times.

Bremner connaît bien son affaire. Il est correspondant du quotidien londonien à Paris et il a accompagné à Moscou le président français. Ses impressions, ses observations d'humeur sont particulièrement à retenir, pour l’aspect personnel de la rencontre, laquelle a sans aucun doute un intérêt politique évident. Sarko est-il sous le charme de Poutine? Et sous le charme de “la cour des grands”? Poutine est-il le symbole de “la cour des grands” pour Sarko?

L’intérêt de ce commentaire personnel vaut qu’on le reprenne pour la plus grande part:

«We know that Nicolas Sarkozy does not touch a drop of alcohol, so something else explained why his spirits were so high when he regaled us late last night on his dinner with Vladimir Putin.

»Sarko was unstoppable as he held forth in a little room in the National, the old Soviet hostelry, now transformed into luxury hotel, which is opposite the Kremlin and Red Square. In three hours at Putin's dacha, two minds had met as they surveyed the world and Russia's resurgence as a power, Sarko said. “It was a long, very long discussion. Enthralling, very intimate. I felt a real desire to exchange ideas and to understand.”

»Something seems to happen to Sarko when he meets Putin. It was after their first meeting, at the G8 sumit in Germany last June, that he acted like such an excited schoolboy that the video of “Drunk Sarko” became a Youtube hit. The French president arrived in Moscow talking of Putin's “brutality” with Russian natural gas and warning how tough he would be with the uncooperative Kremlin.The cosy old Franco-Russian days were over and we would see what we would see, as the French say. Yet there he was overflowing with admiration for the soon-to-resign Tsar — and claiming that he had won a big concession from him over policy on Iran's nuclear programme. […]

»It seemed once again that Sarko was incredulous that he was playing world statesman, accepted as one of the big-boys, dans la cour des grands. Putin, he said, had confided in him his possible plans for staying on in power by becoming prime minister once he stands down as President next year. He had sounded him out on his own ideas for putting a two-term limit on France's five-year presidency. Putin is weighing the pros and cons of continuing power and he is extraordinarily lucid on the matter, said Sarkozy.

»Sarko also said that he had been frank about his misgivings on Russia's treatment with internal dissent and its intolerance for homosexuals. Putin did not react badly, Sarko told me, because he had framed his remarks by stressing the world's admiration for Russia's revived power, saying that this could only be tarnished by less than impeccable conduct at home.

»It is always fascinating to see Sarkozy up close like this. He was even joking that he had something in common with Putin because he had been chief of the French secret service for four years — as Interior Minister under Jacques Chirac. “What makes you think I'm an ordinary president?” he quipped to the group of reporters who had come from Paris to sit at his feet. Chirac would never have made a crack like that. Nor would he have chatted so openly after a session with his good friend Vladimir. Sarko is really different.»

Le texte politique de Bremner, de la même édition du Times (aujourd’hui) n’ajoute rien à celui que nous citons ici. On y retrouve les mêmes incertitudes, les mêmes contradictions que Bremner évoque dans son texte d'humeur,— lequel est, dans ce cas, beaucoup plus pénétrant. Même pour les Britanniques, Sarko est un mystère — à moins qu'il y ait complot, là aussi (dito dans les impressions de Bremner).

Mis en ligne le 10 octobre 2007 à 12H54