In the course of about 72 hours this week, in the most reform-resistant country in the west, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France accomplished more than his two gifted predecessors, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, managed in certain years of their presidencies. He muscled through the National Assembly a constitutional reform that will limit presidential terms and permit him to give an equivalent of the US president’s “state of the union” address. Then legislators reformed – or, to use a more accurate word, revoked – the law capping the working week at 35 hours, which has been the bane of French businessmen for the past decade.

Mr Sarkozy is reforming the state at a rate that, if continued, would make him the most important French leader since General de Gaulle. Yet he is carving out a parallel reputation too – as a bumbler, a disaster or (to cite a Daily Mail headline) “the man who’s made a mockery of France”. Even in France, his approval ratings have often been under 40 per cent in recent months. Where does this two-sided reputation come from?