WASHINGTON INSIGHT

ON ICE: Personalities may be at the core of the frayed relations between France and the United States. President Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III are said to find President Francois Mitterrand and Foreign Minister Roland Dumas “obstructionist” and rarely consult them. . . . U.S. diplomats in Paris relay France’s views in cables, but they think Baker ignores them. When Dumas was in town recently, Bush granted him only a 20-minute meeting. Then Mitterrand again irked Washington by saying the Los Angeles riots were rooted in the conservative policies of the Ronald Reagan and Bush administrations.