Sarkozy addresses the nation

Television viewers here in France will be treated to a double dose of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, this evening when he appears on both the country’s main channels simultaneously in his first live interview since November last year.

Over one and a half hours he’ll face a barrage of questions from five of the nation’s top journalists as he attempts to convince them and the rest of the country that he has got a coherent and effective plan to lift France out of the economic doldrums.

He’ll have a hard job given his current popularity ratings. In the latest survey to hit the newsstands, only 28 per cent of those polled thought Sarkozy was doing a good job.

His ratings started to tumble a few months ago when he was in the most manically omnipresent phase of his presidency.

The chief criticism at the time was Sarkozy’s inability to deliver on his election promise to increase purchasing power and the over-exposure of his private life.

Conventional wisdom certainly assumed that once he took himself off the front pages of the celebrity gossip magazines and turned his attention to things a little more presidential – such as giving the country political leadership – he would bounce back.

But that doesn’t appear to have been the case and instead Sarkozy’s approval ratings have gone from bad to worse.

And still his biggest failing as far as the French are concerned, remains that failed election promise coupled with the inability to tackle inflation.

Just to put into perspective how unpopular he is, it’s worth drawing a quick comparison with his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, at the same point during his last term in office. Back in 2003 after almost a year into his second mandate, Chirac was boasting a healthy 58 per cent approval rating.

Thursday evening’s stage-managed invitation-only party political broadcast on behalf of himself is being touted by political pundits as Sarkozy’s chance to answer his critics on his own turf.

It’ll be broadcast live from the presidential HQ, the Elysée palace, and the “approved” journalists will be able to ask him everything and anything and be guaranteed frank and full replies. Let’s not forget that Sarkozy is the consummate politician and he cleared his desk over the past couple of days to prepare his answers carefully.

It’ll be interesting to see how he responds to questions about his perceived incompetence in managing the economy. Polls show that a majority of people believe that his plans for reform, although ambitious, are largely unrealistic. And the figures get worse when he’s assessed for clarity and coherence of purpose.

For many a major problem during what will soon have been a year in office has been Sarkozy’s tendency to present himself as a man in too much of a hurry to get things done. He has fired up people’s expectations to such an extent that they feel let down that little or nothing seems to have changed.

There is however one fascinating titbit in all of the statistics flying around, apart that is from the fact that the French are polling crazy. In the midst of all the apparent unpopularity, a whopping 80 per cent of people expect there’ll be a need for more belt-tightening.

To a great extent that could give Sarkozy the signal he needs to introduce what might turn out to be unpopular legislation. As he likes to remind everyone, he has a mandate for five years, and wants to be judged on what he will have achieved at the end of that time, not on a constant popularity contest held on the front pages of newspapers on an almost weekly basis.

So the nation awaits tonight’s dose of political doublespeak with anticipation, although it’s unlikely the marathon interview will reach the 19 million-viewer mark of last November’s prime time broadcast. But there is certain to be one man who’ll be keeping a watchful eye and ear on what the president is saying.

When asked how he felt about what he expected his boss to say, the prime minister, François Fillon, responded that at the very least it would give the government a “road map” as to what direction policy would be taking in the future.

That was quite an extraordinary thing for the head of government to admit in public and a clear indication that he at least has been kept out of the loop.