For example, Mr. Chirac announced that he planned to propose ''that France host the world's first summit meeting of all the heads of state and government of Europe and the Mediterranean nations'' to forge wider cooperative ties. That formulation would omit the United States from a recognized role in security in North Africa and the Middle East. Running the entire range of international affairs from security and finance to movie quotas and food, Mr. Chirac held up the EU as a model. But the thrust of Mr. Chirac's presentation surprised many French officials, who said the message seemed to run counter to France's recent record of frustrations with the EU and its successes in international competitions. Globalization has spurred France to faster economic growth in Europe.
Opinion polls show national confidence rising steadily.
The resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the economics minister seen as a talisman for French success, failed to create even a blip on the Paris stock exchange, apparently because of widespread confidence of stability in the countries locked together in the euro. An explanation for the new line taken by Mr. Chirac, a conservative, and Mr. Vedrine, a Socialist, may lie in the onset of political jockeying in France before the presidential elections in 2002. With politicians on the extreme left and on the extreme right stepping up their attacks on recent governments' efforts to take France deeper into international competition, both Mr. Chirac and his main rival, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, a Socialist, can see electoral advantages in attacking the United States as the unacceptable face of change, French analysts said. Anti-American themes, in their new guise, retain strong appeal to Frenchmen, the analysts said. Americans, in contrast, feel comfortable with the idea of a divinely anointed United States imposing its views despite objections from other countries - a unilateralist bent that is the contemporary version of classic American isolationism, according to the historian Arthur Schlesinger.