New French President Will Meet Obama in DC

PATRICK KOVARIK/LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Francois Hollande, the new French president-elect, received both congratulations and an invitation from President Obama on Monday to come to Washington ahead of the G-8 meeting at Camp David and the NATO summit in Chicago, both scheduled for later this month.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that the president told Hollande, who defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, that he looked forward to working with him "on a range of shared economic and security challenges."

The two leaders are expected to address the eurozone crisis, which some economists fear could drag down what little recovery the U.S. economy has made since the recession that began in late 2007.

Hollande, a Socialist, is already butting heads with Germany's Angela Merkel, who favors harsh austerity measures and deficit-cutting.  The new French president wants to retreat from his country's vast spending cuts.

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