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AFTER six months of high drama and showmanship, the French will hand the rotating European Union presidency over to the Czechs on January 1st. Often, even fellow Europeans scarcely notice who is at the helm. But few can have missed the chairmanship of France’s hyperactive president, Nicolas Sarkozy. After a presidency mainly preoccupied with the Russia-Georgia war and global economic meltdown, what has Mr Sarkozy’s energetic, abrasive, impulsive brand of diplomacy really amounted to?