Sarkozy looks to bridge Russian-West divide

PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy regularly denounced Russia's human rights record during his 2007 election campaign and promised to take a tough line with Moscow if he won power.

But, once in office, he adopted a noticeably softer approach and has used France's presidency of the European Union to promote himself as a good friend of Russia who can help ease its international angst.

"I think Sarkozy is seeking to put himself in a position of mediator between Russia and the United States," said Fabio Liberti, a research fellow at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) in Paris. Sarkozy startled some allies at an EU-Russia summit last week when he questioned U.S. plans to build a defensive shield in east Europe and urged both Washington and Moscow to freeze missile deployments until talks were held on European security.

Russia has threatened to place missiles near EU borders if the United States goes ahead with its hi-tech military system and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev nodded approvingly as Sarkozy spoke to reporters after Friday's meeting in France.

Diplomats say the two men have built up a good relationship after the hyperactive French leader helped broker a ceasefire in August to end fighting between Georgia and Russia.

Sarkozy has also worked hard to develop a bond with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, seen by most analysts as the real power to be reckoned with in Russia.

HEADING OFF A HANGING

Underlining their robust rapport, Sarkozy's chief diplomatic adviser told Nouvel Observateur magazine last week how the French president had dissuaded the Russian premier from carrying out a threat to hang Georgia's president "by his balls."

Adviser Jean-David Levitte said Putin had argued that if the United States could hang Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein then Russia could track down Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili.

"Yes, but do you want to finish like Bush?" Sarkozy said, according to Levitte, referring to the unpopular outgoing U.S. president. "That's a point," Putin replied, after a pause.

However good his newfound relations with Moscow, Sarkozy might face problems getting Europe to back a review of European security or a rapprochment with Russia, despite the fact the 27-nation EU is dependent on Russian energy supplies.

Poland and the Czech Republic, which plan to house the U.S. missile shield, publicly rebuked Sarkozy for his comments last week, making clear they thought the deployment was a domestic issue and of no concern to other European capitals.

Germany has also bristled at Sarkozy's call for a major summit in mid-2009 to discuss European security with Russia and the United States, seeing it as another example of his failure to consult with EU partners before making grand announcements.

Eckart von Klaeden, a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, warned France not to launch such initiatives until talks with U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.

"The Europeans should not be presenting fait accomplis to the Obama administration," he told the Handelsblatt newspaper.

STAYING IN THE LIMELIGHT

But analysts say Sarkozy is using the long handover period in the United States to try to establish his own credentials as the main interlocutor between Europe and Washington, while Germany's Merkel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are distracted by their own domestic political problems.

"Sarkozy played a key role in ending the war in Georgia and has created a great stage for himself," said Francois Heisbourg, head of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The French leader has partly been able to strut his stuff because the EU rotating presidency has given him a much higher profile, allowing him to preside over countless summits and set the tone for European relations with Russia.

The presidency passes to the Czech Republic on January 1 and it will resist any attempt by Sarkozy to cling onto the role.

But Russia will not want to deal with the Czech Republic, which used to be inside the Warsaw Pact, as openly as it dealt with France. Sarkozy is also unlikely to sit back and let others jeopardize the warmer ties he has established with Moscow.

Analysts expect the French leader will look to persuade his allies that it is in everyone's interests to see him pursue his own open approach with Moscow in such uncertain times.

"Russia is a country that is pretty wild and entering a phase of extreme economic problems," said Heisbourg. "This is a country you probably want to try to coax into cooperation."

(Additional reporting by Noah Barkin in Berlin and Oleg Shchedrov in Moscow)

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)