Sarkozy Praises Brown Throws a Bone to Obama

The Obamas are off to France, where Obama will meet with Sarkozy and hold a town hall meeting. Sarkozy's a funny guy:

Guardian: Nicolas Sarkozy tonight lavished praise on Gordon Brown and Barack Obama for their role in the G20 summit but insisted the "historic" outcome would not have been achieved without pressure from France and Germany.

Hailing the greatest financial reform since the Bretton Woods agreement, and ending "the madness of this time of total deregulation", the French president revealed there had been "tensions in the room" until shortly before the conference ended.

"We would never have hoped to get so much," he said at his final press conference. "This is not the victory of one camp against the other, but shows the growing awareness that the world needs to change."

Sarkozy, backed by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, had several times threatened to walk out if their joint "red lines" on regulation were not preserved – even though this was widely dismissed as tactical posturing.

"Of course, there are tensions, wrestling matches and vested interests, but even our Anglo-Saxon friends are convinced we need reasonable rules," he said.

Sarkozy emphasized his own role in persuading the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, to accept publication of a list of tax havens by the OECD, despite China not being a member of the body.

"If France and Germany had not demanded results would we have achieved them? What do you think? But Gordon Brown played a very, very excellent role, and President Obama helped me enormously on this issue of tax havens.

"President Obama really found the way to consensus. He didn't focus exclusively on stimulus. He was determined to enhance and step up regulation."