Sarkozy, in his continuing efforts to spearhead the remaking of global capitalism, hosted what was originally to be an international summit, but which ended up being a mere conference, with the title:

New World: Values, Development and Regulation

In AP's report from the conference:

Sarkozy blamed financial speculators for encouraging a system fueled on debt. He called financial capitalism based on speculation "an immoral system" that has "perverted the logic of capitalism."

"It's a system where wealth goes to the wealthy, where work is devalued, where production is devalued, where entrepreneurial spirit is devalued," he said.

But no more: "In capitalism of the 21st century, there is room for the state," he said.

The Pope's newly adopted poodle, Tony Blair, chimed in...

Blair called for a new financial order based on "values other than the maximum short-term profit."

"The greatest entrepreneur I had the chance to meet was passionate about what he had created, not what he had accumulated," he said.

However, Andrea Merkel, critical of the the neo-Keynesian measures of the US & UK, said (as reported in The Hindu) “We would be making an error if we were content to look solely at financial markets,” while suggesting that factors of trade and budgetary deficits play a larger role in the financial crisis.

As The Hindu story notes, the conference had been downgraded from a summit, and so produced no binding resolutions "after the Czech Republic, which took over the EU’s six-month rotating presidency on January 1, expressed some irritation at continued French grandstanding."

To remind, Czech president Klaus has a curious history with Russian interests.

Meanwhile, Russia has been toying with Europe's energy spigot.