Le quotidien qui Mark

THE resignation of two French junior ministers on July 4th was the first fall-out from a series of mini-scandals that for weeks has been undermining the credibility of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government. Alain Joyandet, in charge of overseas aid, and Christian Blanc, who headed plans to create a Greater Paris region, both resigned after a public outcry at their behaviour. The former had hired a private jet at a cost of €116,500 ($157,700) to fly to an international aid meeting in the Caribbean. The latter had charged fully €12,000 of cigars to his ministry. Is this the start of a wider clamp-down within the centre-right French government?

This is the first time in this series of affairs that a member of Mr Sarkozy’s government has paid the price for abuse of office. The president had hinted to his deputies in a closed meeting last week that he would draw conclusions from irresponsible behaviour in a government reshuffle, but not until the autumn. In particular, he mentioned the private-jet, the cigar bill, and a luxury hotel (booked by Rama Yade, the junior sports minister, in South Africa during the football world cup). But growing public indignation and media pressure made it difficult to hold off. It was the Elysée Palace, the seat of the presidency, that announced the resignations, and the government’s spokesman, Luc Chatel, said that Mr Sarkozy had in reality fired them.

By itself, the loss of these two ministers is fairly minor. The fact that neither is being replaced, their portfolios merged into other ministers’, suggests that they will not be much missed. Symbolically, however, it shows that Mr Sarkozy—and his government—is at last beginning to grasp how badly these affairs have gone down in public opinion, and how much they are weakening his presidency. Mr Sarkozy’s popularity has sunk to a crushing record low of 26%, according to the latest poll by TNS-Sofres. At a time when the government is trying to raise the legal pension age from 60 years to 62, and the whiff of austerity is in the air, ministerial abuse shocks. Fully 64% of respondents told another poll by Viavoice, published on July 5th , that they thought that all politicians, on the left and the right, were “pretty corrupt”.

So far, Mr Sarkozy has made some gestures to try to show that the cost-saving effort is being shared. He has cancelled the traditional annual garden party that he throws on Bastille Day, July 14th, which cost €730,000 last year, as well as the presidential hunt. In a letter to his prime minister, François Fillon, he told ministers henceforth to travel by train rather than plane, and to reduce the number of advisers in their cabinets to a maximum of 20 each. He also said he would abolish 10,000 official cars and 7,000 official apartments by 2013, and trim ministerial budgets by 10%.

This may not be enough. There are other scandals: a minister with two official apartments, another who reportedly lodged her brothers in hers. And then there is the case of Eric Woerth, the pensions minister, currently in charge of the controversial reform. He has been caught up in a tax-evasion case linked to the Bettencourt family, which owns L’Oréal, the cosmetics giant, and for whom his wife, Florence, until recently worked. Mr Woerth, who received political donations from Liliane Bettencourt, the billionaire heiress, insists that he did nothing wrong, and that he (and his wife) knew nothing. Even assuming he is innocent, however, the perception of conflict of interest is overwhelming. Mr Sarkozy wants to keep Mr Woerth in office, at least until after pension reform has been voted in the autumn. If the political pressure on him does not die down as the summer holidays approach, he may not be able to wait that long.