Few in France will miss Donald Trump. According to a survey released by the Pew Research Center in January, only 20 percent of the French population have confidence in the U.S. president, compared to 32 percent in the U.K. and 13 percent in Germany. And French President Emmanuel Macron’s high-profile efforts to cultivate his American counterpart on a range of policy issues resulted in some memorable encounters, but also, more often than not, in bitter disappointment.
It may come as a surprise, then, that the French government’s enthusiasm regarding the prospects of working with the incoming Democratic administration of President-elect Joe Biden is decidedly measured.