The predictions coming out of France that President Sarkozy is on the verge of securing a big majority in parliament has to be good news for President Bush and those who stuck with his global vision during the years when the Democrats were vying to please Paris. According to the Reuters news service, a poll for Paris Match released Wednesday found that Mr. Sarkozy’s ruling Union for a Popular Movement, known as the UMP, soared 4 points over a previous poll to 41% of the vote.

Reuters notes the poll was released “the day after Sarkozy urged voters to give him the strong majority he needs in the National Assembly lower house of parliament to implement the reform mandate he won in a May 6 presidential run-off ballot.” The poll suggests the UMP would win between 410 and 450 of the 577-seats in the National Assembly, with the biggest block of opposition seats going to the Socialists. The Communists, the Greens and the far-right faction would be left with the trailings, while Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front would fail to win any seat, according to the poll, though there might be some further sorting out in runoff elections for districts in which no candidate wins a majority in the first round.

What strikes us about all this is how far we’ve come from the days of what the New York Post so famously called the cheese-eating surrender monkeys led by President Chirac. Mr. Sarkozy has had very little but good things to say about Mr. Bush and won the election by positioning himself as a relatively pro-American figure on the continent, not all that different — at least as respects America — from Chancellor Merkel in Berlin. This could change the complexion of American-European relations just as the Bush administration is entering its home stretch and as the parties are tuning up for 2008. One can hope that Senator Kerry, Mr. Chirac, and Herr Schroeder find a comfortable place to commiserate.