Autor: John Vinocur

It is Nicolas Sarkozy's survival as a political force with heathen ideas about how France can escape its Holy Writ of non-solutions to an existence that's added endangered civil peace to its constants of no growth and no jobs.

There is the eternal French dependency on the state, the allegiance to the French model that has failed to provide the jobs, education, housing or respect adequate to integrate Arab and African Muslims into a rich and resourceful country with real claims to special grace.

Angela Merkel becomes chancellor of Germany in the fog of a grand coalition's shared powers, but with an exceptional precedent in hand that should very likely allow her to carry out part of her platform for change.

Europe, and France in particular, are going nowhere down the track to revitalization without a victory by Angela Merkel in the German elections on Sunday.

Europe has a particularly hard time dealing with Islamic terrorism from within because effectively confronting it in the long term means making and enforcing new, clearer definitions of how much Islam it can live with inside its borders.

You can be sure, had Hashemi Rafsanjani been voted president in Iran's recent election, a chorus of pundits would have been calling for the administration to drop its hard line and 'engage' Tehran. We witnessed this last time, when 'moderate' Mohammad Khatami became president in 1997.

France's credibility for economic leadership in Europe is nil.

The last time Europe and America were tested by the horror of Islamic terrorism, their response varied from doing nothing to a confound-ing decision by the newly elected Socialist government of Spain to pull its forces out of Iraq.

To find out which way the European political wind is really blowing, look for the flag of the national leader who is not facing elections in the next 10 minutes. In Spain, a firm gust is pushing the standard of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, last year's anti-Blair and anti-Bush apasionado, toward a course-correction.

The problem with Tony Blair now grabbing Europe's leadership is not so much that the opportunity isn't there, or European interest lacking, but Britain's own real doubts about it - a sense that there's insufficient popular support here to make the move, and that, ultimately and genuinely, Britain and the European Union are less than a perfect fit.