IN A radio sketch this week, a popular comic, Nicolas Canteloup, likened François Hollande, the French president, to the new pope, known in France as François.
The comedian pointed out that they share a first name, neither is married and each is praying for a miracle. It is certainly beginning to look that way for Mr Hollande. His popularity this month dropped to the lowest level after ten months in office of any recent president (see chart). This week, he lost both a cabinet minister and the first round of a parliamentary by-election, in which his Socialist Party was beaten by the far-right National Front.The resignation on March 19th of Jérôme Cahuzac, the budget minister who has become embroiled in a tax-fraud investigation, was a double blow. A former plastic surgeon and amateur boxer, the tough-talking minister was a heavyweight who had just launched a difficult round of planned public-spending cuts. France has given up on its promise to curb this year's budget deficit to 3% of GDP, but cannot afford to miss the target in 2014. The government faces some hard spending choices. Bernard Cazeneuve, who was Europe minister, is taking on this job at an especially testing moment.
Mr Cahuzac's departure is also a plain embarrassment. The Paris prosecutors this week opened a judicial investigation into tax fraud, after Mediapart, a news website, alleged that Mr Cahuzac, whose mandate included cracking down on tax evasion, held an undeclared Swiss bank account. Mr Cahuzac has not been charged and has denied any wrongdoing, telling parliament: "I have never had a foreign account." By acting immediately, Mr Hollande is hoping to avoid a sapping of his government's authority. Yet the affair does not look good for a president who promised an exemplary government.
Scandal is not Mr Hollande's only trouble. Initial public support for the military operation in Mali is waning. Five French soldiers have now been killed, and reports suggest that one hostage has been executed. Over the past month, Mr Hollande's fading popularity has dropped even further. He is now losing support even among left-wing voters, in particular those on the far left who had backed him. In one popularity ranking, he falls nine points behind Nicolas Sarkozy, the man whom he defeated in last year's presidential election.
The disillusion was captured at a by-election on March 17th in Oise, a largely rural constituency north of Paris. In the 2012 legislative election the Socialist candidate, Sylvie Houssin, lost to the right-wing UMP by a handful of votes. On appeal, she secured a rerun but ended up failing even to get into the run-off. Instead, the outgoing UMP candidate will face the National Front, a far-right party, in the second round. "It's a sign that some of our fellow citizens are in disarray," said a defeated and disappointed Ms Houssin. "They cannot yet sufficiently make out policies put in place by François Hollande."
The by-election result will not affect Mr Hollande's solid left-wing majority. But the vote shows just how fed up the French are. The economy is sliding into recession. At over 10%, unemployment is at its highest level in 14 years. The French seem more fearful than ever-and increasingly unpersuaded that Mr Hollande can do anything to protect them.
Part of the problem is that Mr Hollande was elected as the temperamental antidote to Mr Sarkozy: a "Mr Normal" after his predecessor's "Mr Bling". At first, this helped Mr Hollande bring a measure of soothing calm to a tense country. But if the French found Mr Sarkozy's self-promoting hyperactivity stressful, they now find Mr Hollande's preternatural calm unnerving. His efforts to stay in touch with the French, such as a two-day visit by train to the town of Dijon on March 11th and 12th, look gimmicky-and on this occasion ended up backfiring after jeering by some locals.
More awkward still is the sense of confusion over Mr Hollande's economic policy. He vowed in his election campaign to reduce public debt and the deficit, but was deliberately silent about the hard spending choices that this implied and vociferous about taxing the rich and "the world of finance" instead. This year three-quarters of the reduction in France's structural budget deficit consists of tax increases, according to the national auditor, and the government is about to unveil a new, lower version of the 75% tax rate ruled unconstitutional in December. Yet as the OECD stressed in a new report on France published on March 19th, "high levels of taxation are gradually eroding its competitiveness". It urged a greater focus on spending cuts and pointed at overgenerous pension schemes and heavy public administration.
The government realises that cuts are inevitable. It is floating various ideas, such as means-testing family benefits. Yet such reforms were not spelled out to voters last year, when Mr Hollande campaigned against austerity. Instead, they seem to have appeared by stealth. This makes for much confusion. On March 19th Thierry Lepaon, the new leader of the communist-linked Confédération Générale du Travail, the biggest and most vocal union, accused the government of listening more to the bosses' federation than to employees.
The irony is that Mr Hollande has greater powers to gove
rn than any recent French president. His party controls all levels of government, from both houses of parliament down to local government. He has no immediate political rival. He has not faced any big demonstrations against his economic policy (gay marriage drew the biggest numbers on to the streets), nor any serious strikes. He even enjoys (for the time being at least) benign bond markets, with interest rates on French sovereign debt at record lows. In short, there is no real excuse for not getting on with the job. Rather than a miracle, Mr Hollande needs to explain to the French, persuasively, what needs to be done, and why.
Source: The Economist
