By Perry Leopard
Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States on January 20. As his new administration begins their work The Connexion spoke with consular officers at the American embassy about what the change might mean for French-American political and business relations.

“Whenever you have a new president, of whichever party, there are new opportunities to explore, new ways of working together,” said Daniel Harris, the minister counsellor for commercial affairs.

“There is so much excitement around the election of a new president, whether you voted for him or not, he is clearly a break, not only with the previous administration, but also the previous generation.”

In addition to the interest in how the Obama administration will shape up, he added, “there are lot of opportunities to address political, business, climate issues, and we are very excited about that.”

The French followed the US election closely and France's first-year president met with both candidates in the run-up to the election.

Despite saying he would not venture to predict the outcome, Nicolas Sarkozy told Le Figaro newspaper at the time of Obama's visit in July that he considered the Democratic nominee his copain, adding that he had expected Obama to win the nomination by his party.

The two first met during a visit by Sarkozy to the United States in 2006.“He came to visit me at my office in Washington," Obama told Paris Match in January.

“It was before his election in France. He is an energetic and very talented man. I was impressed by his way of looking at problems specific to France with fresh eyes.”

Obama also said said that he wanted to come to France after his inauguration. “I want to see with him how we can strengthen French-American relations,” he said.

Mr Harris noted Sarkozy's moves toward improving the French-American relationship after Jacques Chirac's opposition to the American invasion of Iraq.

“Sarkozy and Chirac are both France first. That's fine; that's their job. The difference is that Sarkozy has put the emphasis on achieving French interests through cooperation with the United States. That doesn't mean we have no policy differences, but since Sarkozy, the number of areas where our cooperation has accelerated is remarkable.

“Under Chirac, we did a lot of business together, both commercially and politically. American and French interests aligned very well in a lot of ways. We were not in the deep freeze from the UN debates forward; we continued to be very active. But it does matter, the positions that leaders take, and the relationships between leaders.

“With Sarkozy, there was an important difference in style but also in approach. President Bush and the United States welcomed that, and we have continued to build the relationship. In virtually every area, even in some areas in which we disagree, our cooperation is at a very high level.”

As the head of the US Commercial Service in Paris, Mr Harris's job is promoting US exports to France and protecting US business interests abroad. With both countries in recession and the effects and depth of the current financial crisis still emerging, Mr Harris acknowledged that currently “there is a lot of uncertainty.”

Mr Harris said: “There are people pulling back from projects. They're not cancelling, but they are putting a lot of things on hold because it's not clear how deep, how long, this recession is going to be, which industry sectors will be the most affected, so right now we're seeing people being quite cautious about implementing plans they already had or making new investments.

“But that is not necessarily permanent; it may just be temporary until people have a better sense of where the Obama administration is going, how the G20 is going to grapple with this, what's the shape of this recession, and certainly what the exchange rate with the dollar is going to be.

“The good news is that President Sarkozy and other European leaders have been very proactive, as have the leaders of the United States - the president, the secretary of the treasury, the president-elect and his new team.

“There are lot of smart people working very hard to try to minimise the effects of the financial crisis. And they're talking to each other, not just the G20, but an enormous number of informal contacts that are going on. There have been some important coordinated actions among central banks, but also a lot of coordination among policy-makers that is much less visible, but extremely important.

One area in which he foresees opportunity to cooperate and do business is in “green building”, or environmentally-friendly construction.

“There's a lot of goodwill and momentum on both sides,” he said. “All of us would like to save energy, and there are a lot of very creative ideas and products. So that's an area that ought to be a win.

“We believe that we are leaders in a lot of fields related to green building: soil remediation, pollution control of all kinds. We are already selling here, but the biggest single obstacle really is different standards, local regulations.

“There is not, even within the EU, the kind of consistency and coherency, because green building and environmentally-friendly construction is a relatively new field. So, we see that as an opportunity.”

Photo:David Katz/Obama for America