The raucous crowd of 15,000 flag-waving supporters erupted in joy when the woman who hopes to be France's next leader turned to a tactic tried and true: disdain and defiance toward the president of the United States.

"We will not go to get down on bended knees before George Bush!" Segolene Royal proclaimed at the rally in the southwestern city of Toulouse last week, drawing roars of "Segolene - president!"

In contrast, the man who will face her in the May 6 runoff for the presidency crossed the Atlantic to shake Bush's hand last September. Nicolas Sarkozy was unapologetic when one of Royal's fellow Socialists called him the US president's "lapdog" and an "American neo-conservative with a French passport."

"I'd have a harder time shaking hands with a certain number of other heads of states which are not democracies," said Sarkozy. "Profound, sincere and unfailing" French friendship with the US "is not submission," he maintains.

Relations with America have not been the major theme of the cliffhanger French campaign: economic reform, national pride, immigration and personality differences have held sway. But it has always been under the surface, an irritant and a touchstone, and a major indication of why the supposedly conservative Sarkozy is perhaps the ultimate candidate of change.

On the stump, he has evoked American themes by citing Martin Luther King Jr and promising a "Marshall plan" of job training for the underprivileged.

And he has noted the French are avid consumers of American culture: They "listen to Madonna, just as they used to love Elvis and Sinatra. Like me, they go to movies to see Miami Vice and enjoy watching The Maltese Falcon or Schindler's List for a second or third time... They wear American jeans and love American burgers and pizza."

Like Royal, if he wins he is not likely to make Washington one of his first destinations, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel did. He has said that - beyond the obvious destinations in Europe - he will prefer Africa, where France has myriad economic and political interests, and lingering postcolonial baggage.

And campaign rhetoric aside, Sarkozy is not likely to be anyone's lapdog: like Royal, he believes in a strong France and can be expected to stand up to Washington if he feels French or European interests are not being served. That could mean continued friction in global trade talks or over subsidies for European aircraft-maker Airbus.

And while Sarkozy and Royal both agree with the US that Iran should not build a nuclear bomb, they favor sanctions and diplomacy over military coercion. As with Iraq, the US should not count on either to support military force against the Islamic Republic.

Sarkozy also is strongly opposed to making Turkey a member of the European Union, which puts him at odds with Washington.

But Royal seems much more committed than Sarkozy to promoting global counterweights to US power.

"The United States sometimes allows itself to be dragged into mistakes by the very weight of its power," she said in a book of interviews published in March. She invokes the idea of a "multipolar world" - code for opposing a US-led "unipolar world" - and warns again NATO, seen as a tool of America, becoming "the world's policeman."

Source: China Daily/agencies