France–United States relations between France and the United States became friendlier after Nicolas Sarkozy was elected President of France in 2007. Sarkozy, who has been called "Sarko the American", has said that he "love[s] America" and that he is "proud of his nickname". In 2007, Sarkozy delivered a speech before the U.S. Congress that was seen as a strong affirmation of French–American ties; during the visit, he also met with President George W. Bush as well as senators John McCain and Barack Obama (before they were chosen as presidential candidates). Obama and McCain also met with Sarkozy in Paris after securing their respective
Early modern France IV made Paris his primary residence (promoting a major building boom in private mansions), but Louis XIV once again withdrew from the city in the last decades of his reign and Versailles became the primary seat of the French monarchy for much of the following century. The administrative and legal system in France in this period is generally called the Ancien Régime. The Black Death had killed an estimated one-third of the population of France from its appearance in 1348. The concurrent Hundred Years' War slowed recovery. It would be the early 16th century before the population recovered to mid-14th-century