It’s none too soon to start taking a look at the foreign policy prospects of France. Certainly all too scant attention has been paid, amid the hoopla following the election that elevated President Sarkozy to the Elysee Palace, to his meeting on May 10, when he joined President Chirac for talks with Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri. The younger Mr. Hariri leads Lebanon’s anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, and the talks underscored the incoming president’s commitment to the outgoing president’s policy in respect of Syria and the Land of the Cedars.

This is being taken as a positive development among those who feared that Mr. Chirac’s demarche might be tied less to France’s interests and more to the personal dimension of the ties between Mr. Chirac and the Hariri family, as well as Mr. Chirac’s personal pique at the Syrian regime he blames for the elder Hariri’s assassination. Mr. Sarkozy’s meeting suggests that he is inclined to adhere to — or at least comprehend — Mr Chirac’s policy on Lebanon, though he’s going to have to take it all a great deal further.

At the moment French troops are bogged down, as it were, along with the rest of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon along Lebanon’s border with Israel. On one side sit the Israelis, who are watching the rapid rearmament of Hezbollah across the Syrian border. Israeli flights over the UNIFIL positions target that flow of weaponry westward from Damascus.

On the other side, north of the Litani River, Hezbollah is rearming and rebuilding its strength. All this is taking place in the face of the Security Council’s resolution 1701, which supposedly ended hostilities last summer, which was supposed not only to prevent the rearming of Hezbollah but begin is disarmament. Both of these elements of 1701 have been frustrated by the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis.

Lebanon isn’t the only arena in which French cooperation with America would yield benefits. It would be a setback were the new president — or new parliament, to be elected in June — to decide to pull French forces out of Afghanistan, especially after the terrorist kidnapping of a French aid worker. Such a move would appear to be a concession to the terrorists. There is already some talk that England, after Prime Minister Blair steps down, will be retreating in Iraq.

The latest reports of Mr. Sarkozy’s senior foreign policy appointments offer at least some hope that Paris will prefer coordination, rather than friction, with Washington. Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Doctors Without Borders and one of the rare Frenchmen who, in 2003, broke with France’s anti-American consensus over the Iraq war, is now touted as the new foreign minister. That follows a scare that Mr. Sarkozy was considering bringing back to the Quai d’Orsay a former socialist foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine.

Mr. Kouchner is a different kettle of fish than the hostile Mr. Vedrine. In the midst of the intifada, Mr. Kouchner received an award from an Israeli university, a sign of backbone amidst the wave of boycotts and extremist anti-Israel rhetoric sweeping Europe at the time. Another welcome sign comes from the report that France’s current envoy in Washington, Ambassdor Lévitte, will be appointed to a new post as National Security Adviser. If true, Mr. Lévitte’s appointment reflects a commitment to a strong relationship with America, while the establishment of a National Security Adviser would dilute the foul influence of the Quai d’Orsay.

The new premier, Francois Fillon, is expected to focus on domestic affairs. But during the campaign, when Segolene Royal visited Beirut, Mr. Fillon criticized the Socialist candidate for taking a meeting with a member of Hezbollah, as well as for failing to stand up to the Hezbollah representative when he lashed out at America and Israel. “Accepting to speak with a member of Hezbollah, which advocates the destruction of Israel, was already a mistake,” Mr. Fillon said at the time. “Letting him insult France’s allies — whether they are the United States or Israel — without reacting, is another serious mistake.”

All of this has been quickly understood by enemies common to France, America, and Israel. An al Qaeda linked group, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, issued an internet statement warning that the election of the “Zionist crusader Sarkozy” would result in “a bloody jihadist campaign in the coming days .. and a fierce war in the heart of Sarkozy’s capital.” This is no small threat on a continent where subways have been bombed in two major capitals in the hopes of gaining a retreat from the war in which we are all in peril.