By Hugh Schofield Paris

Nicolas Sarkozy is not a man to be humbled.

On his latest trip to promote his reform plan for Corsica, he and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin were cornered at Ajaccio airport by a crowd of protesters.

Unable to make himself heard, he was obliged to stand on a plastic chair to deliver his address. The indignity was broadcast on television screens across the nation.

Sarkozy has earned the reputation of a hyperactive hit man

Two days later Eric Delzant - prefect, or state-appointed governor, of the department of Upper Corsica - was summoned to Mr Sarkozy's Paris office.

Asked to explain why he had failed to foresee the demonstration and provide proper security, he had no answer. The minister promptly sacked him.

It is a revealing episode about a man who has earned the reputation as the French Government's hyperactive hitman.

Basking

Unflagging, hard-headed, and unashamedly ambitious, "Sarko" - as he is universally known - sets himself exacting standards in the conduct of his professional life.

Sarkozy is the government's Zinedine Zidane - he organises the game, scores the goals and makes sure the team wins Pro-government deputy

Those who serve under him must meet them too - or fail.

After a year in office, the government's number two is still basking in the glow of general popular approval, and the self-satisfaction of several jobs well done:

• Crime is down

• Police and gendarmes have been re-deployed with a big budget increase

• The number of road deaths has dropped by a third

• Group expulsions of illegal immigrants have resumed without significant protest.

• The country's five million Muslims have their first official body

• Prostitutes are banned from "active" soliciting

• Football crowds can no longer boo the national anthem

• The Sangatte refugee centre is closed

• Next week Corsica's 190,000 voters decide the fate of a Sarkozy plan for a modern, decentralised island administration.

No stereotype

"Sarkozy is the government's Zinedine Zidane," said a pro-government deputy quoted in Le Point magazine. "He organises the game, scores the goals and makes sure the team wins."

Sarkozy has fixed himself a rule - go somewhere or say something at least once a day so that no 24-hour period goes past without him getting talked about Liberation newspaper

The Sarkozy method is energy, communication and surprise.

A former mayor of the rich Paris suburb of Neuilly, he has learned much from the expatriate company executives who concentrate there.

So instead of the traditional ministerial lifestyle of long lunches and complex policies foisted unexplained on the nation, Mr Sarkozy takes power breakfasts, launches an initiative a day, offers the media constant access - and then goes jogging in the evening.

"Sarkozy has fixed himself a rule. Go somewhere or say something at least once a day so that no 24-hour period goes past without him getting talked about," said the left-wing Liberation newspaper.

But the minister has also deftly avoided being typecast as a knee-jerk reactionary. If his popularity remains high, it is largely because he has combined a hard line on law and order with a liberal approach on other issues.

Mould-breaker

Accused of planning to ban a novel containing scenes of paedophilia, he outwitted critics by saying freedom of expression was the overriding factor.

Sarkozy backed the wrong horse in 1995

Introducing his new immigration law, he defused attacks from the left by ending the so-called "double peine" - a rule under which illegal immigrants who commit a crime could be expelled after serving their jail term.

And Mr Sarkozy's Corsica initiative is another example of his belief that the French Right should break free from its traditional moulds.

By advocating decentralisation, the government can pose as a modernising force against a Left still bogged down in post-Marxist dogma.

The problem is that the Corsica vote on 6 July is far from being a dead-cert.

Wilderness period

Many of those who want to maintain the link with France will vote against Mr Sarkozy's reform simply because separatists are voting for it.

The plan risks going down and the minister will take the blame if it does.

The 48-year-old son of a Hungarian immigrant, Mr Sarkozy was budget minister under conservative Prime Minister Edouard Balladur between 1993 and 1995.

But he made the mistake of backing Mr Balladur in the 1995 presidential race and after Jacques Chirac's victory he had to endure a long period in the wilderness.

Friends say it was that experience that formed today's minister - a man with an insatiable appetite for action and an unquenchable fear of failing.