A pro-U.S. president in Paris?

Scripps Howard News Service: The French presidential elections are Sunday, and while technically the United States doesn't have a horse in that race, it's hard not to like a candidate who is sometimes referred to, even if sardonically, as "Sarko the American."
He is Nicolas Sarkozy, the center-right candidate and an unabashed admirer of much in America -- its music, movies, literature, the opportunities it offers and what he calls its "second chances," meaning that Americans aren't limited for life by where they happened to go to school.
He believes in even closer bonds between Europe and the United States, which would be a nice change from his one-time mentor and current president, Jacques Chirac.
Despite this handicap, Sarkozy, the former interior minister who took a hard line on the immigrant riots, is leading in the polls.
Running four or five points behind him, is Segolene Royal, the Socialist candidate who would keep in place France's strong -- some say crippling -- workplace and social protections but would administer them with a feminine touch. Indeed, as her candidacy began to slip, she appealed directly to the women of France to vote for one of their own.
In third place in the polls is centrist Francois Bayrou, whose most successful selling point so far is that he isn't the other two, both heirs to the parties that have ruled France for the last 26 years. The fourth factor in the 12-candidate race is right-wing nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen, who threw French politics into disarray with a surprisingly strong finish in 2002.
There will be a runoff May 6 if no candidate wins over half the vote. It's not our place to meddle in French politics, but let's be honest: Sarko the American has a certain ring, a certain -- how you say? -- je ne sais quoi about it.