President-elect Sarkozy hasn’t yet offered the Quai D’Orsay to Hubert Vedrine, but even the fact he has even considered doing so — a matter which came out in France in the past few days — is enough to put a damper on this side of the Atlantic at the prospect of a new, pro-American hegemony in Paris. The way it was put to us in a cable from Michel Gurfinkiel, the guide for those perplexed by the Fifth Republic, is that M. Vedrine is a “former socialist foreign minister with strong anti-American and anti-Israeli feelings.” How might one put it — that he was a “s—y little” foreign minister?

That’s a reference to the notorious slur on Israel that was uttered by an ambassador of France one evening at a dinner party at the London home of the newspaper magnate Lord Black. The ambassador was called up short by Baroness Black, the journalist Barbara Amiel. The ambassador eventually got reassigned, but nothing changed at the Quai. As recently as a year ago, Monsieur Vedrine was rattling on in a speech — in Berlin, of all places — about what he perceives as bias toward Israel in the conflict between the Palestinian Arabs and the Israelis.

M. Vedrine also dilated on the democratic bona fides of Hamas and how regrettable it was that the West was not embracing the accession of Hamas within the Palestinian Arab Authority. He said: “It is necessary to correct the Occidental reaction to the Hamas victory.” He wants Europe to counter-balance American Jewry so that America might force Israel to be more forthcoming with the Arabs. He fretted that the West is perceived in the Arab world as hypocritical for encouraging democracy and then condemning the Palestinians for electing Hamas. On Sunday talk surfaced that Mr. Sarkozy may instead send to the Quai D’Orsay another socialist, Bernard Kouchner, founder of Doctors Without Borders, whom our Mr. Gurfinkiel calls a “much more sensible option.”

It seems, in any event, that the way the Fifth Republic is set up, the presidency is only part of the prize. Less than a month after Mr. Sarkozy is to be sworn, there will be the election for the national assembly. If Mr. Sarkozy’s faction fails, the clout of the new president will be diminished at the outset. By hinting that someone like M. Vedrine could emerge with the foreign, or another, portfolio, Mr. Sarkozy no doubt hopes to attract in the parliamentary elections support from those to his left. The game leaves America and Israel in doubt about whether they will be able to look forward to an improvement in relations with France.