Hours after Nicolas Sarkozy became president of France, both Germany and Britain began wooing him—Germany to win his support for a European constitution, Britain to secure his opposition to it. Sarkozy immediately huddled with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor who has been lobbying hold-outs with one-on-one talks, the London Times reports.
France rejected the constitution in a referendum in 2005 but 18 other countries ratified it. Sarkozy is expected to play a key role in negotiating changes that could make an agreement more palatable to the five EU sceptics—Britain, Poland, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Denmark. (More European Union stories.)