Le quotidien qui Mark

With his ratings sliding, the unpopular French president seeks to bolster his support by foraying abroad
A NEAT equation governing presidential popularity has taken hold in France. The more time that Nicolas Sarkozy spends at home with his fellow countrymen, the less liked he becomes. And the more he globe-trots, or is seen to be dealing with world affairs, the more his popularity rises. For a leader who badly needs to rescue his poll ratings from the record lows that they hit in April, the temptation is clear. As France gears up for its presidency of the G20 this autumn, and of the G8 next year, there is ample scope for a fresh round of global escapades. But that could mean less reform at home.

The link first emerged when France held the rotating six-month presidency of the European Union in the second half of 2008. Then, the kinetic Mr Sarkozy jetted off to Moscow to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Georgia, and then hammered out an EU response to the global financial crisis from Paris (with a little help, he conceded, from Britain’s Gordon Brown). Never one to shy away from claiming a headline-grabbing deal, Mr Sarkozy managed to pose, at least in the eyes of French public opinion, as both peacemaker and financial saviour. During that six-month period, his popularity rating climbed from a low of 38% to 46%, according to OpinionWay, a pollster.

Ever since, robbed of his official European leadership platform, Mr Sarkozy has struggled to assert himself. His call for a big Middle East peace conference in Paris came to nothing. His grandly launched Mediterranean Union has more or less disappeared from sight. In 2009 the number of official overseas visits that he made dropped by some 40% on 2008—and his approval rating ended the year some six points lower. The more that Mr Sarkozy turns his eye to domestic matters, the more discontent seems to spread: teachers, students, train-drivers, industrial workers (remember “boss-napping”?), magistrates: all have taken to the streets in protest.

For sure, other factors must weigh on Mr Sarkozy’s poll numbers. He has not been helped by the recession and swelling unemployment, nor by various political misjudgments, including over his private life. Yet the French are clearly still willing to give him credit for assertive diplomacy that they no longer do for domestic affairs. In a recent poll for Paris-Match, only 45% of respondents thought Mr Sarkozy capable of reforming France, yet 70% reckoned he defended the country well abroad.

Indeed, Mr Sarkozy has an artful grasp of how to turn diplomatic action into personal triumph. He demonstrated his self-serving skills at the recent EU summit in Brussels on the euro zone’s sovereign-debt crisis. Fully “95% of the text” adopted by the euro group to bail out Greece, he claimed, “was French”, a wild assertion that went largely unscrutinised by the French media. With no apparent irony, Le Figaro, a cheerleading newspaper, helpfully reported a comment he made to an adviser: “In Greece they call me ‘the saviour’.”

As Mr Sarkozy’s luck would have it, in November France takes over the 12-monthly presidency of the G20, and in 2011 adds that of the G8. Usually, the rotating country “presidents” of these informal global groupings pass unnoticed: who knows, for instance, that France is taking over the G20 from South Korea? But Mr Sarkozy is not one to miss any opportunity for global grandstanding. Already, in quiet corners of French officialdom, planning meetings are taking place on how to make the most of the G20. The president wants a new “Bretton Woods” to remodel the international financial architecture, along with more regulation of “financial capitalism”. He also hopes to use the G20 to take the lead on diplomatic matters, such as dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

When it comes to crisis-management, even Mr Sarkozy’s detractors recognise his ability to focus minds and extract decisions. Yet, in his bid to exploit the G20 presidency to revive his popularity ahead of France’s 2012 presidential election, Mr Sarkozy will also miss no chance to push for crowd-pleasing headlines. His pet villains are familiar: speculators, traders, bonuses, credit-rating agencies, hedge funds and tax havens. Some of Mr Sarkozy’s foreign friends have learned to ignore his desire to please domestic audiences with fiery anti-market rhetoric, since it is not always backed up with action. But the underlying game can still make him a tricky, if not reckless, partner. In Brussels, some senior figures are already referring to him privately as King Nicolas.

The other risk is that foreign hyperactivity turns into a distraction from economic reform. When the rest of Europe is making big deficit-cutting efforts, France stands out as the only big country that needs to take urgent action, but has not. France’s budget deficit for 2010 is forecast to be 8%, closer to that of Greece (9.3%) than Germany (5%). Mr Sarkozy is negotiating a controversial rise in the legal retirement age from 60, and says he wants a deal by July. He has also proposed writing a deficit-reduction rule into the constitution. Yet there is so far nothing of the austerity drive that is now under way in Spain, Britain, Italy (see article) and even Germany. The French seem to be betting, optimistically, on growth to do most of the repair work.

Furthermore, and astonishingly, officials suggest that, once pension reform is done, there is no other big economic reform left to propose. They argue that Mr Sarkozy has already put in place the bulk of what is needed to improve French competitiveness. “Next year we will improve or consolidate existing reforms, rather than start anything new,” says one adviser, claiming that, in any case, there would be no time to push fresh legislation through parliament before 2012. Under this logic, a crowded diplomatic diary is not needed as an excuse for domestic inaction.

Mr Sarkozy has a further reason for wanting to bestride the world again. His most fearsome Socialist potential rival for 2012 happens also to be boss of the Washington-based International Monetary Fund. Dominique Strauss-Kahn is currently circling the globe in efforts to help resolve the euro-zone crisis. The polls suggest that Mr Strauss-Kahn would have a much better chance of beating Mr Sarkozy than Martine Aubry, the Socialist leader, would. Next to Ms Aubry, Mr Sarkozy can readily appear to be the global figure of stature. Next to the IMF boss, the contrast would be a lot less obvious.