Avenue de Beaulieu: The View from Europe

HAS Nicolas Sarkozy saved the world? While in Britain Gordon Brown is being hailed as "the man with the plan", in Europe, Mr Sarkozy is being lauded for some smart footwork over the weekend on the banking crisis. On Friday, the G7 emergency summit of the big industrial nations in Washington ended without producing anything concrete by way of action to stem the collapse in the world's stock exchanges.

So Mr Sarkozy hastily arranged a meeting of the 15 eurozone members to hammer out a European rescue plan for the banks, before the markets opened on the Monday. Actually, this was the first such independent political summit of eurozone members, which...