A little more than a year ago, Nicholas Sarkozy became the president of France. He was welcomed as a reforming free market conservative who intended to spare no quarter in turning around a country that had long lived off its past.

He seemed genuinely appalled by the truth behind the English joke that the problem with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur.

Little wonder that any Frenchman under 40 who wants to get rich has been living in London for years. Or that Ashford, the first stop on the English side of the Chunnel route, is bursting with French businesses eager to avoid the regulations that smother free enterprise in France.

Mr. Sarkozy vowed to cut a swath through the restrictive labor laws that inhibit bosses from hiring and firing and pledged to reduce France’s ruinous state-guaranteed vacations, pensions, and entitlements. He dismissed the traditional French disdain for what is called “Anglo-Saxon economics” — that is, the free market — and vowed that as a longtime lover of America he would follow Ronald Reagan’s example.

Well, that was then. In the interim, Mr. Sarkozy certainly has been active. According to a Parisian businesswoman friend, he has announced no fewer than 55 “initiatives” since becoming president, and all have come to nothing. Last week he persuaded the Assemblée nationale to alter the constitution so he could personally address them. The price was further curbs upon his presidential powers.

He says he will replace only half the number of fat cat civil servants who retire on index linked pensions, though he has yet to follow through. He has introduced some piffling advances, including a tax cut on overtime pay to encourage people to work longer, though he fatally failed to outlaw the 35-hour working week.

Instead, last week he passed the parcel to employers, who can, if they dare, negotiate a better deal with France’s powerful unions. Most large companies have already made clear they will not risk upsetting the status quo for fear the unions will shut them down.

Mr. Sarkozy’s approach to union leaders is perverse. While previous presidents confronted the syndicalistes, and sparked crippling strikes, Mr. Sarkozy has tried to charm them by feeding them haute cuisine in Parisian restaurants and by inviting them round for a glass of champagne at the Élysée Palace.

In foreign affairs, Mr. Sarkozy was against the Iraq war from the start and will not provide French troops to help the Iraqis, though, naturellement, he wants French companies to win lucrative contracts now that America and the Brits have imposed a form of peace.

Similarly, while he said France should take a full part in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, there are still no prospect of a single Frenchman fighting Al Qaeda alongside American and British NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The European Union is in disarray since the Irish refused to endorse in a referendum an ill conceived “constitution.” Mr. Sarkozy’s response was to tell the Irish they must vote again and keep voting until they got it right. So much for democracy.

After inheriting the E.U. presidency on July 1, Mr. Sarkozy ignored the impasse that has frozen the community and launched instead a grand Mediterranean alliance, binding France to the dictators, Islamists, and reformed terrorists who rule North Africa.

Far from injecting free market ideas into the European Union, he has refused to sacrifice “on the altar of global liberalism” the lucrative subsidies that keep small French farmers wealthy and the price of food absurdly high.

The brash, bright, brave Mr. Sarkozy who so impressed us has been distracted. After his failed marriage to Cécilia and his acquisition of a new wife, Carla, Mr. Sarkozy has taken to striding the world stage. Bold foreign gestures have become a refuge from trying to fix intractable domestic problems.

But as his putative heroine Margaret Thatcher discovered, tough decisions must be taken at the beginning of an electoral term, if there is to be time to recover before the next election. Confident that she was right, the Iron Lady was indifferent to popularity ratings. Her lasting legacy is a prosperous, burgeoning Britain in which London has become the de facto capital of Europe.

Mr. Sarkozy is cut from a different cloth and above all likes to be liked. In America, Mr. Sarkozy remains well-liked, while at home his reputation has slumped.

Tony Blair suffered the same fate, admired abroad for his charm and good looks while mistrusted at home for not improving public services as he had promised. Jimmy Carter, too, devoted too much time to foreign disputes rather than tackle inflation and unemployment. Messrs. Blair and Carter now wander the world like lost souls, welcome everywhere but at home.

There is a lesson for Barack Obama in Mr. Sarkozy’s slip from grace. Last week the senator showed he has already been seduced by the glamour of traveling overseas. He was given a hero’s welcome in Europe and Mr. Sarkozy, among others, was eager to be photographed shaking his hand. Surely, 200,000 Germans can’t be wrong?

On seeing his poll numbers slip in his absence, Mr. Obama seemed to grasp why. “People are worried about gas prices and home foreclosures,” he said. “We have been gone for a week.” Leaving aside the implication of that troublingly regal “we,” American voters might ask whether President Obama would be sure to put their pressing problems before those of the rest of the world.

nwapshott@nysun.com