Now I get it. It's not the French who need to approve. It's the Martians.
From Powerline:
Kerry: "[I]f they were honest enough to give America the full quote, which America heard, they would know that I'm never going to allow America's security to be outsourced. That's the job of the president.
But I can do a better job of protecting America's security because the test that I was talking about was a test of legitimacy, not just in the globe, but elsewhere."
It's not clear, but he apparently repeated this.