Cheese-eating surrender monkeys no more?

France may be headed in a new direction, as its new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, speaks seriously of domestic reform and puts a new foot forward internationally. Traditional American perceptions of one of our oldest allies have remain fixed for decades: largely despised by conservatives and viewed with mixed regard by others, while almost universally regarded as little more than wine-swilling, chain-smoking gourmands.

But Sarkozy threatens to alter both his nation's status quo and our perceptions of him and his country. Indeed, few foreign leaders have elicited as much commentary in recent weeks as France's new president, who was elected earlier this year after defeating largely unreformed socialist Ségolène Royal. This media spotlight is entirely understandable, if only because compared to his predecessors, Sarkozy is an entirely atypical French politician.

Perhaps unsurprisingly in the midst of this, some commentators have drawn Napoleonic comparisons. These are fitting and illuminating-both are short, energetic and not entirely French; Napoleon was a Corsican, Sarkozy the son of Hungarian immigrants. In a way, too, both came from outside the system; though Sarkozy has gone to all the right schools, he seems to lack the biases and mindsets characteristic of much of the French bureaucratic elite.

Although he's unlikely to invade Russia any time soon, he has at times appeared quite revolutionary in the sense that he is willing to challenge the French status quo at home and abroad. Although there hasn't yet been any serious opposition (perhaps because the entirety of the French nation spends all of August on vacation), he has continued to speak seriously about reform, about an end to the 35-hour work week and putting the bloated public sector on a crash diet, among other things.

In French politics, such an open and direct call to shake things up and butcher so many sacred cows is highly unusual, but, given the sclerotic state of the French economy, entirely necessary. With unemployment holding steady at 8 percent (in comparison, in the United States, unemployment stands at 4.6 percent), economic growth not expected to meet targets this year and restive young urban populations regularly torching cars, it has become increasingly clear that inaction is no longer acceptable. Merely in his willingness to call for change, Sarkozy has made waves in a country where too often reform has meant increased statism.

But whether or not Sarkozy can actually implement any reforms is still uncertain. France has too many special interest groups holding too much power-especially unions and farmers-and they have not previously proven amenable to giving up any of their prerogatives. The willingness of French workers to swallow the bitter pill of reform is also unclear. Though Sarkozy was elected with a clear majority, Royal won among voters 18 to 59 years old, the demographic that would be most directly impacted by his proposed reforms; George Will recently cited this among his reasons why Sarkozy would be unable to enact reforms.

Sarkozy also seems to have inaugurated a new era in French foreign relations. Whereas his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, was staunchly opposed to military intervention in Iraq (he once called Saddam Hussein a personal friend) and was all too often an anti-American or an obstructionist, Sarkozy has already reached out to Bush. His foreign minister recently visited Iraq, the first time a French minister had done so since the war began, and called for a greater European commitment to the country. He has also had especially strong words-stronger than those of any other European leader-for Iran as it continues to develop nuclear weapons.

Although he's maintained an outward commitment to the European Union, it's entirely plausible that this will weaken in the future. On a purely personal level, some observers argue that he and Gordon Brown, Britain's new prime minister, will find it hard to forge a working relationship. He has also already sparred with Germany, traditionally one of France's closest partners. Overall, his desire to inject a strong dose of economic liberalism into a typically European economy and to reorient his foreign policy towards Washington is not likely to win him many friends in Brussels.