How is the US-France relationship going now that Francois Hollande was elected as their president?

[BBM]

I am just curious about your opinions. The ideology of capitalism and socialism have long been rivals. Does that affect the Franco-American relationship at all?

[Jim]

Considering that the US has a socialist president, I suppose they will be much better

[MikeL]

Hollande is a social-democrat, not a real "socialist". Social-democrats believe in free-market but basically think that the State also has an important role to play.
Pure capitalism is an utopia, there are always some socialist elements, social-democraties basically have slightly more of these socialist elements that the US but there is no major difference.

Overall, he is center-Left while Obama is center-Right, so there won't be major disagreements.
In terms of foreign policy, Hollande probably won't be as active as Sarkozy who was very energetic and volunteer, but the French Left's foreign policy has always been astonishingly close to that of the Right, so there won't be major disagreements either.


Now, if Mitt Romney wins, that's an other story. If he is elected there are big chances that the relationship between the US and the rest of the world (except Israel) will turn relatively bad.