The French president reaches the halfway point, with a petite list of accomplishments.
Gabriela Perdomo – Nicolas Sarkozy has fallen prey to the 50 per cent curse. With one notable exception, the French president’s popularity has remained in the lower half throughout 2009. With two and a half years to go in his term, and the bulk of his proposals yet to be discussed in the legislature, Sarkozy faces a tough road ahead.
Gabriela Perdomo – Nicolas Sarkozy has fallen prey to the 50 per cent curse. With one notable exception, the French president’s popularity has remained in the lower half throughout 2009. With two and a half years to go in his term, and the bulk of his proposals yet to be discussed in the legislature, Sarkozy faces a tough road ahead.
One of the president’s main problems is precisely what helped him get elected—a sort of personality cult epitomized by an addiction to being in the media, for whatever reason. The French have not been impressed with this attention-loving president. Sarkozy’s approval rating fell after he publicized his marriage and honeymoon with former super model and singer Carla Bruni, and many people wanted the story out of the airwaves.
As pointed out in an earlier analysis, the president’s accomplishments are continuously overshadowed by more personal stories that Sarkozy himself is happy to provide to the media. The latest in this trend is the shocking appointment of his 23-year-old son Jean to manage a government agency, Epad, which handles the business district—and the billion-euro budget—of La Défense in Paris. The scandal has brought the president accusations of blatant nepotism which are certain to drag his popularity even lower.
Contrary to what many people might think, a second scandal that recently shook Sarkozy’s administration—the re-surfacing of a confession by culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand, who paid to have sex with "boys" in Thailand—has had no impact on the government’s stance amongst voters. A poll conducted by BVA in early October shows that most French think the subject is not enough to request the minister’s sacking.
By and large, Sarkozy has managed major foreign issues well this year. He has been a leader, along with German chancellor Angela Merkel, in calling for stricter bank regulations to avoid unnecessary risk-taking. He has also advocated for capping bonus payments for bank employees. Certainly his calls for reining in "those who get indecently rich" while bringing the financial system "to the brink of disaster" have struck a chord with the French audience, outraged by their own brand of the global financial crisis.
In the Afghanistan question, Sarkozy recently said there would be no more French troops going to assist the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces, but resisted calls to withdraw troops already there. In terms of the environment, the president is promising to provide leadership in the upcoming summit in Copenhagen next December.
There is no question Sarkozy has raised France’s profile in Europe and the international arena in general. But the president doesn’t need much of a political mandate to perform well with the international crowd. At home, he faces a much tougher battle.
Both the president and his appointed prime minister, François Fillon, have yet to present French people with a convincing and viable plan to reduce ballooning state spending and budget deficits. There have been many promises for reform, including proposals in the labour and education sectors, but they have been met with massive strikes and popular opposition, and few of them have been turned successfully into law.
The latest domestic decision, the introduction of a carbon tax in the 2010 budget, might have many environmentalists happy, but does not sit well with most citizens, at least according to a CSA poll.
Sarkozy won the presidency in May 2007 with 53 per cent of the vote. In a way, he has never enjoyed the support of half of the voting population. But two and a half years into his term, the president should have more to show than mere plans to do something. Granted, the global financial crisis affected governments in every country throughout 2009. But Fillon and Sarkozy cannot rely on this excuse for their petite list of accomplishments. There is still some political capital left, and a chance to show the same type of leadership at home that the current administration has demonstrated abroad. Soon enough, a new distraction will interfere with the government’s grand plans for France—Sarkozy’s campaign for re-election for the 2012 ballot.
