Sarkozy wants to "change the world" with Obama (Roundup)

Jan 20, 2009, 15:36 GMT

Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday that he was impatient for US president-elect Barack Obama to take office so that the two of them could 'change the world.'

'We are eager to see him go to work so that we can change the world with him,' Sarkozy said during a stop in the city of Provins.

However, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned that Obama could not work political miracles.

'He is an exceptional man,' Kouchner said, 'but he does not have a magic wand.'

Former French presidential candidate Segolene Royal claimed that she and her campaign had inspired Obama during his successful run for the presidency.

'Yes, I inspired Obama and his teams copied us,' Royal was quoted as saying by the online edition of the daily Le Monde in Washington, where she was to be the only French politician of note to take part in Obama's inauguration later on Tuesday.

Royal said Obama's campaign aides took away several of her ideas, such as her idea of the 'citizen expert.' In addition, she said Obama 'adapted' her tactic of participative democracy to the US political landscape, 'which is very different from the European.'

Royal said she came to Washington because she has 'a sense of history,' and especially because 'I wanted to experience it differently than in front of the television screen.'