"BEST ALLY IN EUROPE"
"U.S.-French relations are very strong at the moment, particularly in the foreign policy and security area," said Heather Conley, a Europe specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington.
As a matter of fact, Obama is eager to see a more cooperative France now than any other time during his presidency.
"Obama benefits from demonstrating close relations with a government that has taken a more forceful line toward some issues, such as the civil war in Syria, on which some of Obama's domestic critics wish he would be more forceful," observed Paul Pillar, a visiting professor at Georgetown University for security studies.
While the U.S. president is facing a Republican party unwilling to cooperate on almost anything in Congress, he has a number of priorities on his agenda to push through during his second year in office after winning reelection in 2012, including immigration reform and job creation.
The president's Democratic Party stands to lose ground in November mid-term elections, a prospect that has worried the party a lot as it is trying to hold the Senate after losing the House of Representatives to the GOP in 2010 elections.
France's taking the lead in Africa, notably in Mali and the Central African Republic, had pleased the Obama administration, which has shown reluctance to engage militarily overseas due to a tightening budget and the public's weariness with wars.
As in Libya in 2011, when Britain and France took the lead in launching air strikes on government targets, Washington has chosen again to "lead from behind" by offering logistical and information support for French and African Union-led efforts in Africa.
Washington needs Paris in the years ahead in its continued efforts to prevent al-Qaida from gaining new footholds across the Sahel region and help boost security in countries from Senegal to Somalia.
"France has become the U.S.'s best ally in Europe, at least as seen through the prism of crisis management and military cooperation," Frederic Bozo, an international relations expert in France, was quoted as saying by a Christian Science Monitor article.
In his efforts to forge a personal bond with Hollande, Obama took the French leader aboard his Air Force One jet, as soon as he arrived on Monday for the visit, to tour Thomas Jefferson's plantation estate outside Charlottesville, Virginia, as the third American president was a famed Francophile and a U.S. ambassador to Paris.
For Hollande, he needs help from Obama and the U.S. as well amid an unemployment hovering around 11 percent, an anemic growth of 0.4 percent in the last quarter, a drop of 77 percent in inflowing foreign investment in 2013 and a record low in his personal approval rating.
That's the reason the French president has chosen to head westward for a meeting with leaders of hi-tech companies in Silicon Valley on Wednesday, after attending a state dinner held in his honor on Tuesday evening at the White House.
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