"They only went to Paris because they wanted
to meet his wife". An Arab diplomat friend with an inexorable
grasp of the realities of international relations is a vital source of wisdom in separating glitter from gold. The reference in this case was the summit organised by Nicolas Sarkozy in the Grand Palais in Paris on
13 July 2008 which launched his favoured initiative, the
Union for the Mediterranean (UPM); though if the event made a
dramatic opening to France's chairing of the European Union's rotating six-month
presidency, it is doubtful that even the lustre of Carla Bruni could have made this more than a one-day-headlines wonder.