ABSTRACT
Many things are going smoothly in Russia-France relations. The two countries are preparing to organize, in 2010, a year of France in Russia and a year of Russia in France. Cooperation on Afghanistan is going on, with the agreement allowing transit military supplies to the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force). The Georgia war has been analyzed amid emotion, triggering comments about the unconditional support that France, by virtue of its traditional diplomatic line, is willing to offer to Russia. Russia is one of the factors that have made it impossible for Nicolas Sarkozy's France to put its friendship with Russia at the service of all Europe. France remains convinced that isolating Russia or criticizing it systematically as a player that is unavoidably foreign to European practices and life is wrong and detrimental to European security. Moreover, there have always been ambivalent feelings in France about Russia, which are certainly due to specific political circumstances in France.
