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Since taking office on May 16, French President Nicolas Sarkozy's pace has wowed almost everyone. At home, he rammed through reform legislation aimed at encouraging work, cutting taxes, fighting crime and clamping down on immigration. Abroad, he helped break the logjam over the European Union's institutional setup, negotiated the freedom of six Bulgarian medics imprisoned in Libya and strengthened Franco-American relations over a vacation lunch with U.S. President George W. Bush.

But can he keep it up? As summer ends, the fast-moving "Sarko Show" has begun drawing criticism. Opponents complain that Sarkozy's sunny-day successes don't all bear up under scrutiny: was the Libyan triumph linked to troubling nuclear and military contracts? Does Sarkozy's penchant for economic interventionism, visible in Sept. 3's megamerger between utility giants Gaz de France and Suez, mock his free-market rhetoric? Time asked a group of French and international experts to evaluate the spectacular start to the Sarkozy era and how — or whether — he can meet that promise in the months and years to come.

ALAIN DUHAMEL, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR FOR RTL RADIO THE DAILY LIBÉRATION AND SEVERAL OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Nicolas Sarkozy had a successful summer in the Elysée, but it will be difficult for him to perform as well in the crisper air of autumn. The reason is simple: until now, he was responsible for nearly everything that happened, while from now on events will be driven by many other people and circumstances.

Sarkozy has demonstrated incontestable virtuosity in taking up the French presidency. Opinion polls ranked his popularity nearly as high as General de Gaulle's three months after De Gaulle's return to power, and ahead of all other French Presidents. Sarkozy even seemed to break with the past — quite a feat for someone from the same political family as outgoing President Jacques Chirac. Thanks to his policy of "opening" to rival forces, Sarkozy has attracted Socialist stars to his team, forging a cooperation that is uncommon in France.

So far, with his phenomenal hyperactivity, Sarkozy seems to have the four arms of the god Vishnu. It is not by accident that he has won over French voters. Sarkozy has skillfully used the media to trumpet the fulfillment of campaign promises such as tax reform, a tougher tack on crime and a more supple stance on the official 35-hour workweek. He has reacted to every tragic headline with the energy and compassion of a national psychotherapist. Never before under the Fifth Republic has a President personally taken and stood behind so many decisions in such little time. Even if Articles 20 and 21 of the French constitution stipulate that the Prime Minister and his government set policy, for now, French voters are fine with his all-consuming presidency.

But those same French voters are famous for rapid political mood changes. Once the novelty of a situation has worn off, the French quickly readopt their famously corrosive spirit. His backers most want to see unemployment lowered (it's officially at 8% today) and purchasing power increased. But French economic growth, unlikely to exceed 2% in 2007, is too weak for that, and public deficits are still too high. Sarkozy's economic margin for maneuver is therefore much more limited than he would have liked.

Sarkozy also wants to reform pensions and liberalize the labor market — always explosive issues. His objectives for the next 100 days on hot topics like immigration, justice and education are popular, but the social context he'll be facing won't be favorable. His first major electoral test will be French municipal elections next March, when the Socialists could recapture strategic cities like Toulouse, Bordeaux, Reims, Rouen and Caen. Before then, Sarkozy counts on demonstrating the left's weakness, which he can do only as the young General Bonaparte did upon becoming First Consul: by portraying each new battle as both epic and victorious.

DOMINIQUE MOÏSI SENIOR ADVISER TO THE FRENCH INSTITTUTE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

President Nicolas Sarkozy's frenetic launching period has been globally positive, though the operative word is "globally." From Libya to Brussels by way of reforms at home, the relentless Sarkozy has given people the feeling France has finally awakened from a long sleep to become a vibrant, enthusiastic "new France." But now we're starting to see what I'd call a Hitchcockian "shadow of doubt": the public has started asking how much lasting result all this action is producing.

Virtually no one challenges the idea that Sarkozy has proved himself the most gifted and dynamic politician in France today. His initial presidential record has shown him to be a tireless leader who personally shapes policy on all fronts. But when you look at his accomplishments so far, you have to wonder whether his political genius may have overshadowed his effectiveness as a statesman: the solutions he is quick to offer often reflect the very problems they are meant to address.

That paradox is evident in foreign affairs. Sarkozy has declared European issues to be among his main diplomatic priorities, but he has approached them with nationalistic designs. Sarkozy played a central role in getting E.U. leaders to accept a simplified treaty in the place of a new constitution, for example, yet he has continually criticized the European Central Bank — and attacked its president, Jean-Claude Trichet — for not shaping policy to French economic considerations. Similarly, just how good a European was Sarkozy being when he preempted years of effort by Brussels to secure the freedom of Bulgarian medics held by Libya in order to cut a deal of his own with Tripoli? Sarkozy did a marvelous job restoring relations between Paris and Washington, but were the military and nuclear deals France signed with Libya really in the best interests of the Atlantic alliance?

At home, Sarkozy often says he wants to give greater freedom to markets, but his actions show he's no economic liberal at heart. The merger of Gaz de France and Suez is the perfect example of an interventionist state influencing companies and the market. Politically, Sarkozy has shown true genius in undermining the Socialist Party by attracting some of its leading lights to his team. But is mere political calculation also behind his backing of Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn to head the International Monetary Fund? Sarkozy's motives are often open to question — and differ from his stated objective.

For those reasons, Sarkozy will need to reconcile his words and acts if he wants his next three months to be as successful as his first three. He'll also need to place less emphasis on grand movements across a broad spectrum and more on nailing down clear, lasting results.

MARIELLE DE SARNEZ EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE CENTRIST UNION FOR FRENCH DEMOCRACY

Sarkozy's early days have succeeded in one important area: after years of passivity and even absence of leadership under former President Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy recognized that France needed a new leader who would put himself and the nation back on center stage. Beyond that, Sarkozy's record is far less brilliant than obsequious French media have suggested, and the coming season promises to be more complicated.

Few among the public and pundits struck by Sarkozy's omnipresence have stopped to look seriously at what all his activity has produced. Those who do see tax reform that will cost France $20 billion annually as of 2008, but will do nothing to stimulate stalled economic growth. For all his kinetics, Sarkozy has done nothing to reverse France's trade deficit or halt its growing debt; the small dip in the unemployment rate in recent months has masked the shrinking number of new jobs companies created. Sarkozy sends a terrible message to our European partners by refusing to undertake economic reform at home or to abide by the rules we expect all other euro-zone nations to respect. Sooner or later, Sarkozy will have to tighten the belt or pay heavy consequences.

In foreign affairs, Sarkozy has similarly shown a flair for big announcements of limited results. Despite his finish-line sprint, 99% of the credit for freeing the Bulgarian medics from Libya goes to years of tireless work by E.U. officials. Sarkozy's warmer relations with the U.S. shouldn't and can't hide the deep differences that France and Europe have with America — and not just on Iraq. And it's hard to fully applaud his success in Europe's agreement on the simplified treaty when, elsewhere, Sarkozy sends the message to Germany and others that their work to trim deficits and reform economies aren't for us.

Sarkozy's strategy of perpetual movement thrills the media and public — and ensures he's already gone on to the next activity by the time people start asking questions about the results of the last one. Sarkozy must now get down to the often uncomfortable task of doing what's right rather than what's popular. Governing isn't a theatrical, superficial task.

JOSEF JOFFE PUBLISHER AND EDITOR OF THE GERMANY WEEKLY DIE ZEIT

Who is Nicolas Sarkozy — Napoleon III or Mick Jagger? "Sarko," the rock star, struts his stuff with gold chain and bared chest, hanging out with the high and mighty. The third Napoleon, French Emperor from 1852 to 1870, came to power in a putsch, installing an authoritarian monarchy.

Sarkozy was of course anointed by a nice democratic margin, and his ratings (64%) should make George W. Bush pale with envy. Yet in a soft coup, Sarkozy has unhinged Article 21 of the French constitution, according to which the Prime Minister, and not the President, runs the show. Sarko is omnipresent and "omnipresident." He is his own cabinet.

Is it action or just agitation? He is running hard, but to where? Sarkozy utters all the right words, such as "globalization" and "liberalization." But when it comes to tackling France's sclerotic labor market, he talks of "assouplissement" — softening. He wants to tinker with the 35-hour workweek, not scratch it. To encourage workers, he wants to cut taxes on overtime. How to push growth? Let's have a commission first.

"Anglo-Saxon capitalism" is no longer an epithet in the Elysée. But the reality is, well, very French: leave the driving to the state. Let's have "national champions," such as the giant merger between two utilities, Gaz de France and its rival Suez — essentially a monopoly under government control. Sworn to competition, the E.U. won't like this. But Sarko has already attacked the independence of the European Central Bank, another pillar of the European construction.

Change seems to be clearest in foreign policy. The love-hate relationship with the U.S. is warming up. George W. must like what he hears. Sarkozy accuses Putin's Russia of a "certain brutality," and he castigates Beijing for "transforming its insatiable search for raw materials into a strategy of control." Nobody sounds tougher on Iran. If sanctions fail, the choice is stark: "an Iranian bomb, or the bombing of Iran."

Well roared. Meanwhile, Sarko faces a creeping collision with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, his exact antipode in Europe. He struts, she plods. He plays rock, she plays chess, crafting gentle persuasion into a net that spans Beijing and Brussels, Washington and Moscow — anchored in Berlin, of course.

Given Europe's placid, post-heroic mood, odds are that Merkel will end up with a bigger pile of chips in this game.

PHILIP H. GORDON SENIOR FELLOW AT THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION IN WASHINGTON AND TRANSLATOR OF SARKOZY'S BOOK TESTIMONY

It would be easy to predict the coming implosion of Nicolas Sarkozy's three-month-old hyperprésidence. The French, after all, are notoriously averse to change and have a proven record of stopping reforms in their tracks — just ask Jacques Chirac, who in 1995 saw his modest plans for reforming the welfare state rejected by hundreds of thousands of angry protesters; or Dominique de Villepin, whose even more modest efforts to tweak the French youth labor market some 10 years later were similarly rejected. Even when the French do not bring down governments with their feet, they bring them down with their ballots — in every parliamentary election since 1978 and before 2007, the French voted out whichever party they had voted in the previous time. Add on top of this the nonstop pace of the ambitious Sarkozy and his devil-may-care attitude toward French media and social conventions (like vacationing in America or jogging in shorts), and all the conditions seem to be in place for a regime that will trip up, exhaust itself, or create too many enemies before it gets anything done.

All that would be easy to predict, but I think quite wrong. Sarkozy got elected running on an explicit platform of major change and praise for hard work, discipline, tax cuts and even the United States. His victory suggests that the French are more open to change than conventional wisdom held. Moreover, Sarkozy is blessed — in part due to his own cleverness in co-opting the most popular Socialists — with a hopelessly divided and demoralized opposition, unlikely to be able to challenge him anytime soon. And for all the rhetoric about making a "clean break" with the past, an image reinforced by the frenetic pace of the workaholic new President, Sarkozy seems well aware of the need to avoid moving too quickly or radically — as evidenced so far by his willingness to compromise on the 35-hour workweek, university reform and "minimum service" for public transport.

Observers inside and outside France have likened Nicolas Sarkozy to Margaret Thatcher, a comparison Sarkozy himself has embraced. A more apt British comparison, however, might be with Tony Blair. Like Sarkozy, the youthful Blair also challenged party and political sacred cows in his first months, and he was similarly accused of accumulating too much personal power, ignoring Parliament, manipulating the media, cozying up to dubious tycoons, and aligning his country's foreign policy too closely with that of the United States. But Blair also won three consecutive elections, destroyed his political opposition, modernized the British economy, passed major domestic reforms and helped Britain punch above its weight on the international stage. By the end, Blair had become deeply unpopular, and his bold support for the Iraq war finally proved a bridge too far. But that was after 10 years in power, not 100 days. Bet on Sarkozy to make a similar run.

• Bruce Crumley
• The new French President is off to a dazzling start. But will he prove a great reformer or merely a gifted showman? TIME asks five experts what's next for Nicolas Sarkozy