If the art of politics is about seizing the moment, then the French president Nicolas Sarkozy has certainly grabbed this one.
First of all, he went out on a limb in officially recognising the Libyan opposition.
Then he corralled the international coalition, pushed through the no-fly UN resolution, and bombed Muammar Gaddafi’s tanks outside Benghazi.
A week later, though, military leadership of the alliance has now passed to the US and Nato – France still carries a kind of moral aura thanks to its early championing of the cause.