It is impressive to see that with each election the majority of comments are ready to fall and to fall again in the same trap. Taking rhetoric for granted and despizing geopolitical realities, they tell us – some of them with enthusiasm, others with apprehension – how foreign policy is bound to undergo a fundamental change. It is, however, far from being that simple.

European-American structural tensions – breeding for decades and becoming acute with the end of the bipolar era – were merely brought onto surface by the Iraq crisis. Beyond the official pseudo-vision and occasional visions represented by German hesitations, the two genuine, concurring visions about Europe, transatlantic relations and the international order are advocated respectively by the British and the French.