Along with [Gordon] Brown [Great Britain PM], the most consequential Europeans...ere German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
...temperamentallythe to leaders couldn't have been more different. Merkel...keeping her head down and earninga PhD in quantum chemistry...unwavering patience...stolid appearance...no-nonsense,analytical...famously suspicious of emotional outbursts and overblown rhetoric.. I figur[ed] thatin a German leader, an aversion to possible demagoguery was probably a healthy thing. Lol
Sarkozy, on the other hand, was all emotional outbursts and overblown rhetoric.(emphasis in original)...his primary, barely disguised interest,...as to be at the center of the action and take credity for whatever it was that might be worth taking credit for.
Sarkozy [was] respectful of Merkel's innate caution...Merkel [was] willing to overlook Sarkozy's idiosyncrasies but deft at reining in his more impulsive proposals...(509-511)
...
By the end of the [2009] London summit, the G20 had managed to strike a deal in response to the global financial crisis...In a rush of enthusiasm, Sarkozy grabbed both me and Tim [Geithner, Treasury Secretary] as we were about to leave the venue."This agreement is historic, Barack!" he said. "It has happened because of you...And Mr. Geithner here...he's magnificent!" Sarkozy then started chanting my Treasury secretary's last name like a fan at a football game, loudly enough to turn a few heads in the room. I had to laugh, not only at Tim's evident discomfort but also at the stricken expression on Angela Merkel's face--she had just finished looking over the wording of the communique and was now eyeing Sarkozy the way a mother eyes an unruly child." (522-23)
