Amel Boubekeur writes that the controversy surrounding Nicolas Sarkozy's comments on the full-face veil in France has excluded the people it most concerns - the women who wear it.

As France returns to NATO's integrated military structure, it's time for the alliance to undergo a long-delayed transformation, Benoi D'Aboville says.

The French president did more than anyone expected regarding Russia—but there's much more to be done.

The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, has pushed for his country to rejoin NATO's integrated military command in the hopes that it would help establish a capable European Security and Defense Policy. Ronja Kempin writes that this would only be possible if the French were to use their EU Presidency to link NATO and the EU by creating an operational civil-military EU planning and conduct capability closely linked to NATO's capacities.

Paris Bureau Chief Christopher Dickey reports on the success of small and highly professional French combat units that have coordinated with military forces from different countries in varying alliances-the kind of fighting Western armies are called on to do more and more. The French do it well and it is key to their growing-perhaps pivotal-role in NATO that has changed dramatically since the end of the cold war.

This article discusses Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency, calling him "The Hyperpresident."

Philip Gordon’s article discusses France’s new foreign policy under the pro-American President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Report from the Washington Institute that considers the possibility that the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as president of France may usher in a less accommodative EU policy towards Hezbollah. The report says that Sarkozy appears to see Hezbollah in a different light than his predecessor, Jacques Chirac. In a September 2006 closed-door session with Jewish leaders in the United States, for example, Sarkozy reportedly referred to Hezbollah as a "terrorist organization"—a sentiment unlikely to be stated by Chirac. During last summer's war between Hezbollah and Israel, Sarkozy defendedIsrael's right to defend itself against an organization he described as the "one aggressor" in the conflict. He also stated that France should have committed troops to Lebanon more quickly during the war.

This paper from the German Marshall Fund of the United States looks at the troubled tripartite relationship between Poland, France and Germany. The paper says this unstable relationship – the so-called ‘Weimar Triangle’ – has made it difficult to coordinate relations between the three countries, but notes that recent meetings have seen leaders of the three countries put contentious issues aside and concentrate on finding solutions to outstanding problems.

This Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report for Congress deals with the factors shaping France's foreign policy and U.S.-French relations (PDF).

France faces a problem with its Muslim population, but it is not the problem it generally assumes.Paradoxically, it is the exhaustion of political Islamism, not its radicalisation, that explains much of the violence, and it is the depoliticisation of young Muslims, rather than their alleged reversion to a radical kind of communalism, that ought to be cause for worry. 

Michael Moran reports that calm returns, but some say it is just a lull.

Frank Klotz discusses France's new defense white paper and its implications for France's nuclear policy.

Ed Husain discusses the Toulouse shootings and the need for Jews and Muslims to demonstrate togetherness against a common enemy.

Micah Zenko says the United States, France, and Britain must be clear about their objectives in Libya.

James M. Lindsay and Kate Collins discuss France's recognition of the National Libyan Council as the sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people.

"France can help us more than we think," writes Walter Russel Mead looking through the history of the rocky U.S.-French relationship to provide context for the current state of the alliance.

Michelle Smith and Charles D. Ferguson evaluate Sarkozy's nuclear deals in the Middle East.

Walter Russell Mead argues that “a Sarkozy who overcomes the transport unions will take a decisive step toward the modernization of France.”

News that Cecilia Sarkozy is divorcing her husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy, is all over the U.S. press. But there is another woman in the Sarkozy constellation who matters more than Cecilia. She is Christine Lagarde, the 51-year- old French finance minister.  At a recent meeting at the Council on Foreign Relations, Lagarde outlined her plan to cut marginal taxes on labor, lower the tax rate on investors by boosting research tax credits, lower the share of citizens' total income that can go to income taxes to 50 percent or less, and end a requirement that all patents be translated into French. Amity Shales writes that Lagarde is the one most likely to seduce investors away from the U.S. and to France.