Since the beginning of the popular upheavals across the Middle East and North Africa, Sarkozy has sought to position France as a regional leader. Yet France’s attempts to project itself as defender of an ethical foreign policy in the MENA meet scepticism. The French president has proved willing to collaborate with autocrats when it has coincided with his country’s interests, but equally quick to abandon them when events have corresponded to wider regional changes in popular demands. His penchant for unilateral opportunism does not augur well for consistent and coherent European support for the Arab spring.