Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Nicolas Sarkozy abruptly left his wife on the Riviera to help end Russia's siege of Georgia. Now the deal France's president cut on Europe's behalf is in tatters, prompting his foreign minister to say ``we fear a war'' and forcing Sarkozy to scramble for a new response.

His efforts on Georgia and other diplomatic matters reflect a frenetic approach that may undermine his campaign to reassert France's clout abroad and do little to boost his popularity at home.

Sarkozy ``is potentially a serious player, but he has this terrible tendency to shoot himself in the foot,'' said Tomas Valasek, the Centre for European Reform's foreign policy director in London. ``He spends months building friendships, taking risks and then destroying what he patiently built because he is impulsive.''

His international statesmanship puts him right where he wants to be -- in the spotlight.

``Bush is almost gone, Blair is not there anymore and Merkel, well, she's not really out there,'' Sarkozy told reporters in Lebanon in June, referring to U.S. President George W. Bush, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. ``There is only me.''

`Hyper-President'

Derided in the press as the ``hyper-president,'' Sarkozy has visited 39 countries in 15 months in office. Jettisoning predecessor Jacques Chirac's policies, he tightened alliances with the U.S., Israel and NATO and injected himself into crises from Colombia to Tibet. And on Sept. 1, he'll convene an emergency EU summit to discuss its next move on Georgia.

Sarkozy, 53, on July 1 became the European Union's rotating six-month president and took the diplomatic lead after Russia invaded Georgia to counter its Aug. 7 move to retake the pro-Moscow breakaway region of South Ossetia.

As Russia routed its neighbor, he began a 12-hour mission to Moscow and Tbilisi on Aug. 12. After little consultation with allies, he announced a cease-fire on Aug. 13.

Critics and Georgian officials said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, 42 -- a lawyer, like Sarkozy -- got the better of him.

After promising to pull out, Russia continued to occupy a third of Georgia for days, including the central city of Gori and the port of Poti. Then it kept peacekeepers in buffer zones outside South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway. Previously, Russian peacekeepers were only on the regions' borders, on missions undertaken after 1990s independence wars.

`Fragile, Insufficient'

``He wrapped up the crisis exactly as he usually does: arriving quickly and signing a deal at almost any cost,'' said Frederic Bozo, a French Institute for International Relations analyst in Paris. ``The cease-fire stopped a war, but it was fragile, insufficient and left too many loopholes favoring Russia.''

Russia's latest rebuff of the West was Medvedev's Aug. 26 recognition of the enclaves' independence. He said the move protected Russia's border and cited the West's February recognition of Kosovo's independence from Serbia, a Russian ally, to justify it.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili told France's Le Figaro newspaper that Sarkozy was duped because Russians ``respect nothing if there is no threat.''

As French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has made clear, war threats aren't an option. ``We don't want one,'' he said Aug. 26.

NATO Command

Sarkozy improved U.S. relations, which frayed when Chirac opposed the American-led Iraq invasion in 2003, by reinforcing France's military presence in Afghanistan and returning it to NATO's command structure after a four-decade absence.

He also angered the U.S. by joining Germany in refusing to put Ukraine and Georgia on fast track to join NATO, which instead promised the former Soviet republics eventual membership in the military alliance.

Sarkozy has riled Europeans, too. Germany's Merkel put the brakes on his election-night proposal to create a Mediterranean Union of countries bordering the sea. Merkel, objecting it would compete with the EU, forced him to include Germany and other EU countries without Mediterranean coasts.

He managed a symbolic diplomatic coup at the group's inaugural summit July 13 in Paris: the first encounter between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as their countries engaged in indirect peace talks. They didn't shake hands.

Colombia Captive

Sarkozy made little headway in trying to free Ingrid Betancourt, a dual citizen of France and Colombia held captive by rebels in the latter country for more than six years after being kidnapped as a presidential candidate. Colombia's military rescued her in July.

At home, his popularity rating has picked up from a low of 35 percent in May. He had 40 percent approval in a survey by polling company Ifop published Aug. 23, his highest since January.

Some of his foreign policies aren't going over well at home. As a candidate, he talked of reducing France's Afghanistan deployment -- and then sent in another 700 troops. On Aug. 18, 10 French soldiers were killed there, fueling new withdrawal calls.

Sarkozy was pilloried in France for attending the opening of the Beijing Olympics on Aug. 8 after China's crackdown on dissidents in Tibet and for bowing to Chinese pressure not to meet the Dalai Lama. He sent his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, to see the Tibetan spiritual leader in Roqueredonde, France, on Aug. 22.

She passed on her husband's best wishes, the Dalai Lama's spokesman said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Helene Fouquet in Paris Hfouquet1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 28, 2008 16:13 EDT