On Sunday, French voters flocked to the polls for the first round of France’s presidential election and sent conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal into the May 6 runoff. You might ask why I care about a country I’ve consistently disdained in past columns. The short answer is, I don’t. I care about this country. I care about the world at large. But the reality is that as one of the six or seven most powerful nations in that world, France has a major, albeit waning, influence on international affairs. And this election will likely decide the nature of that influence in at least four key areas.

1. Franco-American Relations

Let’s not mince words. Franco-American relations have gone down la toilette, and — well — it’s mostly France’s fault. Throughout his 12 years as president, Jacques Chirac has shown an obsession with what he calls the “American hyperpower,” opting to upstage the U.S. rather than to join it in tackling common challenges. Royal has echoed Chirac’s call for a “multipolar world order” as if America was some sort of global menace, like the Soviet Union, that needs to be countered. The threats of today’s world, though, call for a reinvigoration of the Transatlantic alliance that won the Cold War. That’ll take an America that listens to its allies, but it’ll also require a Europe that sees American supremacy as an opportunity, not a problem. With Tony Blair stepping down in a few months, America desperately needs another friend in the European Union. Nicolas Sarkozy is an open admirer of America and has les boules to say so to a French audience.

2. Iran and the Middle East

France is one of nine countries with the bomb. Whether Iran becomes the tenth could well depend on the actions France takes in the coming months as a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council. While both candidates have insisted that Iran’s nuclear ambitions be thwarted — a step in the right direction from Chirac’s comment that “a nuclear Iran wouldn’t be so dangerous” — Sarkozy is more attuned to international issues and would, thus, be more likely to take an active role in helping the international community isolate and contain Iran.

Royal, whose campaign has focused far more on protecting socialism at home than on protecting peace abroad, has hurt herself with a number of YouTube-worthy foreign policy gaffes. On a trip to Lebanon, during a meeting with a Hezbollah politician, Royal stood silent as the man compared Israel’s summer war against his organization to the Nazi occupation of France. She even chimed in that she agreed with much of what he had to say, “notably your analysis of America.” Though Royal later apologized, I’m not sure I trust her to give orders to the French-led U.N. force in Southern Lebanon that’s been entrusted with keeping Hezbollah at bay. If the peacekeepers don’t stop looking the other way as Hezbollah smuggles in Iranian arms through the Syrian border, then the next war is only a matter of time.

3. Muslim Minority

In 2002, French voters shocked the world by giving more first-round votes to the far-right Jean Marie Le Pen than to the Socialist candidate. While Chirac overwhelmingly defeated the National Front leader, Le Pen’s rise to prominence in French politics — he finished fourth on Sunday — reflects popular unease with France’s rapidly growing and increasingly restless Muslim minority. Part of this anxiety is fueled by outright racism against nonwhites, but there has also been legitimate concern among ordinary Frenchmen that the political mainstream has been ignoring the rising radicalism and crime emanating from Muslim quarters.

Like other Western European countries, France has done a terrible job integrating its Muslim immigrants, who now constitute nearly 10 percent of the French population. It has allowed its Muslim-populated suburbs to become self-contained enclaves with astronomical unemployment, where children speak more Arabic than French and learn more about Islamic culture than the one to which they supposedly belong. When those immigrant areas exploded in riots two years ago, Sarkozy — then the interior minister — gained respect for his aggressive handling of the crisis. While his hardline positions on law and order, assimilation and illegal immigration have earned him few friends among French Muslims, Sarkozy is no Le Pen. He has broken with French tradition by supporting affirmative action for young North African immigrants and state funding for mosques that don’t preach radical Islam. Sarkozy’s twofold approach — an extended hand to immigrants who work hard and abide by the law, a fist for those who refuse to do either — should gain notice from other European countries struggling with their own Muslim minorities.

4. Anti-Semitism

A Jewish historian once remarked that had he been told at the turn of the 20th century that a European nation would kill six million Jews, his immediate response would have been, “Damn Frenchmen.” Despite France’s uneasy history of anti-Semitism, the country is today home to Europe’s largest Jewish population, which has largely flourished since World War II. A recent resurgence of anti-Semitism, however, has seen synagogues burned, Jewish graves desecrated with swastikas and Jews beaten up in the streets on a regular basis.

The driving force behind this new anti-Semitism? See #3. No, most Muslims in France aren’t committing anti-Semitic crimes; but, unfortunately, most anti-Semitic crimes in France are being committed by Muslims (the remainder coming from members of the far right and far left). As a result, France has been hemorrhaging thousands of Jews to Israel every year. Polls show that over half of French Jews have seriously considered leaving the country. It says something that the vast majority of French Jews have thrown their lot in with Sarkozy after years of unqualified support for the Socialists. The direction of events in France may decide whether Jews have a future in an increasingly Muslim Europe.

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Polls show Sarkozy leading Royal comfortably. And if you share any of the above concerns, you should hope it stays that way. I say that at great personal sacrifice; Segolene Royal is a bona fide MILF, and I’d much rather watch her on the evening news than Sarkozy. But if that news also features a nuclear-armed Iran, more Muslim riots and a further deterioration of Transatlantic relations, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

Ben Birnbaum is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at bhb9@c­or­ne­ll.­e­d­u. Infomaniacs Anonymous appears Tuesdays.