In fairness to Sarkozy, his motives in appointing Kouchner had more to do with wrong-footing his Socialist adversaries than with the “droit d’ingerence.” And Kouchner himself, to the cynical amusement of the French press, has retreated radically from his insistence on an immediate intervention to protect refugees and internally displaced people in Darfur from further slaughter by the Sudanese government-backed Janjawid militia.