When President Jacques Chirac rolls out the red carpet at the Elysée Palace, it is only for visiting heads of state. Last week, however, he made a conspicuous exception. Jose Manuel Barroso, a former Portuguese prime minister who will become president of the European commission — but not until November — got the royal treatment when he came to see Chirac on Wednesday.

Chirac, along with the palace guards in their full regalia, were there to meet him at the front door. The last time Chirac did that was for the Queen and George W Bush.

It might seem trivial, but the French take protocol as seriously as football and food, and the greeting of Barroso represented a dramatic change in the behaviour of a monarchical French leader who until recently displayed every sign of believing that he — not the commission president — was in charge of the European Union.

In short, Chirac has realised he must stop antagonising people by behaving as if he were the western world’s senior statesman; and that, in turn, shows how far down the EU pecking order France and its ageing leader have fallen since the enlargement of the European family earlier this year.

Throughout the history of European integration, from the common agricultural policy to the introduction of the single currency, the major policy initiatives of the EU have always been French. French presidents strutted the corridors of Brussels and installed their choice as candidate for any of the EU’s top jobs with the click of a finger.

Not any more. Pascal Lamy, outgoing French EU trade commissioner, recently summed it up thus: “Things are changing,” he said. “The French have to realise that Europe will be something different from a big France.”

A new balance of power since the “big bang” EU expansion to 25 members has left the French fretting on the sidelines, a predicament all the more frustrating considering that their rivals les rosbifs are now mustering more diplomatic firepower in Europe.

Part of the problem for France is a linguistic one to do with the retreat of French and the spread of English in Asia and the former eastern bloc. Documents at the EU are now circulated in English rather than French. Even the Olympics used English and Greek exclusively this summer, prompting a Parisian protest.

In June, Britain ganged up with new and old “Anglophone” members to win substantial changes to the EU’s draft constitution. Originally this was a French project drawn up by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, one of Chirac’s predecessors. He had urged its approval without amendments, as had Chirac, arguing that a “watered down” constitution was worthless.

Instead, Chirac now faces the prospect of seeing his countrymen voting in a referendum against a document that many on the French left view as a sellout to the British vision of the EU, defining it as nothing more than a free trade zone.

Then Britain and its allies managed to shoot down France’s candidate for the post of president of the commission and orchestrate the appointment of Barroso. To add insult to injury, when Barroso nominated 25 commissioners, one for each member state, France was awarded the low status transport portfolio, prompting howls of outrage in the French press.

Since then, British bureaucrats have also netted powerful cabinet jobs in the foreign relations, budget and trade directorates of the commission, gazumping the French in what they had always regarded as a branch of their own civil service.

Last week, Britain and the new EU members also pushed the commission to relax Europe’s 48-hour working week rule, so eastern European countries can work as hard as they like to catch up with their richer neighbours. France, which observes a 35-hour week, had opposed the change, fearing it would tempt investors to move to the east.