Nicolas Sarkozy may still have work to do to win the French presidency but he has already secured the unspoken support of Berlin, Brussels and London.

To leaders in Europe’s big power centres, Mr Sarkozy may be an abrasive Gaullist, but he is best placed to bring a reformed France back into the political mainstream, making him the fourth member of a powerful group of Atlanticist European Union modernisers.

Angela Merkel, German chancellor, José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, and Tony Blair, British prime minister, have privately discussed the idea of forming a “strategic partnership” with Mr Sarkozy.

Gordon Brown, Mr Blair’s presumed successor, has also spoken to Ms Merkel and Mr Barroso on how the four might work together to promote economic reform and build a more outward-looking Europe, with strengthened US relations.

All of them speak the language of results and reform rather than being obsessed with deeper European integration. “Brown is definitely interested in the idea of a partnership with Merkel, Barroso and Sarkozy,” says an official close to the talks.

While Mr Sarkozy’s allies lie to the north and east, Ms Royal looks south: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s socialist prime minister, and Romano Prodi, Italy’s centre-left premier, are among her highest-profile supporters.

However, Madrid and Rome are a less powerful force in EU politics than the tight Berlin-Brussels-London triangle, whose liberalism is shared by many Nordic and central European countries.

Ms Royal’s support for Turkey’s EU membership – rejected by Mr Sarkozy – would at least give her some common ground with Britain, and her pro-European credentials have been endorsed by Jacques Delors, the socialist former European Commission president.

But in the short-term at least, Mr Sarkozy seems best placed to help dig Europe out of its dilemma over the EU constitution that French and Dutch voters rejected. He backs a slimmed-down mini-treaty ratified by the national parliament.

Ms Royal wants the document to be more “social” – likely to be rejected by liberal countries – and has promised a new referendum, although allies hint she might reverse that pledge.

Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, argues that in the longer term Mr Sarkozy is best placed to lift the “sick man of Europe” tag from France and to see through reforms to allow it to face the modern world with confidence. He says Ms Royal is the real conservative.

But Mr Grant allows that “of course Sarkozy is protectionist”, a Gaullist “France first” trait which would put him in conflict with Brussels and other national capitals.

When Mr Sarkozy was finance minister in 2004 he clashed with Brussels over his bail out of Alstom, the engineering company, and infuriated Berlin by trying keep German companies out of France by promoting “national champions”.

“Europe is the antithesis of his approach because it places restraints on national politicians and on what they can do,” says Daniel Gros, director of the Centre for European Policy Studies. He argues that Mr Sarkozy’s hyperactive style will make him “extremely difficult to deal with”.

German officials concede that while Ms Merkel’s agenda is in tune with that of her French centre-right colleague, the two have not struck up an immediate ­personal rapport, and the German chancellor has been careful to keep open channels to Ms Royal.

Martin Koopmann of Berlin’s DGAP foreign affairs think-tank says Ms Merkel seeks a wide range of allies.

Gordon Brown could be one: Ms Merkel is said to have developed good early relations with the Scot, partly based on the fact that both are children of sober protestant ministers.

Mr Sarkozy’s policies might be preferable to those of Ms Royal in Berlin, Brussels and London but his personal style suggests any new partnership is unlikely to run smoothly. “He’s like Jacques Chirac,” says Mr Gros. “Only worse.”