President Sarkozy’s ambitions for European leadership face a big test tomorrow when he gathers the leaders of 44 nations in Paris to launch a grand scheme for a new Mediterranean Union. In the splendour of the Grand Palais, which was built in 1900 for an exhibition of French imperial power, most of the presidents and prime ministers of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East are to endorse the plan by Nicolas Sarkozy for a north-south community.

The jamboree, which will end after the leaders have reviewed the Bastille military parade on Monday, risks turning into a costly embarrassment unless Mr Sarkozy manages to stir interest in Europe for a bridge with the Arab world. At worst, the new “Club Med”, the biggest initiative of the French presidency of the EU, will go down as an example of the tendency by Mr Sarkozy to improvise schemes that he fails to follow through.

It might also be remembered for the first contact between Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, and President Assad of Syria.

Under pressure from Germany and other EU states, the project has been stripped of its original aim of creating a club of Mediterranean coastal states similar to the European Community of the 1960s.

On his election in May last year Mr Sarkozy sketched his vision for creating prosperity along the arc from Morocco to Turkey, solving the Middle East conflict along with it. It would “end all hatreds to make way for a great dream of peace and a great dream of civilisation”, Mr Sarkozy said. A union of equals would ease the tension between north and south, and the pressure of illegal immigration and religious fundamentalism, he said.

Since then the vision has fallen foul of old rivalries and Mr Sarkozy has been forced to trim his project to a handful of initial projects for cleaning the Mediterranean, harnessing solar power and co-ordinating disaster relief. Controversial issues such as immigration, the Middle East peace process and trade rules were not on the table.

Mr Sarkozy upset all sides at first. The Arab nations were not keen on sharing the table with Israel. He infuriated Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, by presenting the union as a French-led, EU-financed scheme that would include only Mediterranean nations. After she threatened to sabotage the French EU presidency he gave way last March, putting it under the auspices of the existing but moribund EU Barcelona process for the Mediterranean. This soothed the Spanish, who were displeased by what appeared to be a French grab for their project.

Turkey suspected the scheme as a Sarkozy wheeze for thwarting its EU membership and Algeria, the former French colony that fought an independence war, also took a dim view. Intense lobbying finally convinced everyone except Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and King Abdullah II of Jordan to attend the three-hour meeting and Paris festivities.

The King said that he was on holiday but Colonel Gaddafi poured scorn on the enterprise as an insulting, imperialist plot. Mr Sarkozy sent one of his top advisers to Tripoli last month to try to change Colonel Gaddafi’s mind, but he failed. “This project is doomed to fail,” Colonel Gaddafi said on Wednesday. “It will fuel terrorist acts from Islamist groups who consider it a new crusade project.”

France is presenting the union as an advance from the Barcelona process because it recruits the southern and eastern shore nations as a partnership. The enterprise will have co-presidents, starting with Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Mr Sarkozy for the EU. Egypt only agreed to attend after securing a promise of the co-presidency. The French President wants to remain as co-president after the French EU presidency lapses in December but the European Commission does not agree.

Opponents of the heavy-handed regime of President Ben Ali of Tunisia were annoyed that Mr Sarkozy had offered to put the union’s small secretariat in Tunis.

Despite the bumpy path to the “Club Med” the Élysée Palace has depicted it as a much-needed impetus to tackle mutual problems. With their young population and big energy resources, the southern and eastern Mediterranean countries are ripe for a new framework for European investment and mutual trade, they say. Former French colonies in North Africa said that they were waiting to see action from Mr Sarkozy. One of their first demands is more free access to European markets for food products — something that France opposes vehemently.

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