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French President Nicolas Sarkozy may have won American hearts with the paean of love he sang in Washington, but back home his boldness has yielded only mixed returns.
French commentators agreed that Sarkozy, effusively applauded in a keynote address to both houses of Congress, had revived relations that had been cold or borderline hostile since 2003, when France defied the US rush to invade Iraq.
Some praised Sarkozy for patching things up with the world's sole superpower, others accused him of pandering to a lame-duck US President and of spurning Europe, while many thought his speech had little substance.
Sarkozy invoked Marilyn Monroe, Martin Luther King, John Wayne, the Apollo moonwalkers and other heroes as symbols of America's unquenchable energy and optimism and paid tribute to the US liberators of D-Day. "We love America," said Sarkozy, as he assured Washington of French backing on such issues as Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.
"We may have differences, we may disagree on things, we may even have arguments, as in many families.
"But in times of difficulty, in times of hardship, one stands true to one's friends, one stands shoulder to shoulder with them, one supports them and one helps them."
Sarkozy, who took office six months ago, has made no secret of favouring a pro-American shift in French foreign policy. A routine dig at Washington and sullen distancing from its policies have been a tradition since the mid-1960s, when President Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of Nato's US-led military command.
But by making such a radical break abroad, Sarkozy took a risk at home. His opinion poll ratings are slumping in the face of fumbled economic and social initiatives, strikes in the public sector and the messy breakup with his wife Cecilia.
The conservative daily Le Figaro said Sarkozy had scored a success.
"In a country that still doesn't understand why it is so disliked around the world, it was refreshing [for American politicians] to hear a foreigner from an old continent sing praises to the American dream with such sincerity," it said.
"Mr Sarkozy put himself forward as a friend, but also as a partner, of the United States," the left-of-centre Le Monde said. "Without saying so openly, he brought the curtain down on French diplomacy that in the past has too often defined itself as being the opposite of US foreign policy."
The leftwing daily Liberation, though, blasted Sarkozy's speech as a cliche-laden avowal of love for a nation.
"Love is not the basis for a policy," it said tartly.
