Nicolas Sarkozy said that he would make the French work harder, starting with his own government. True to his words, he has lopped 10 days off the traditionally somnolent month of August and begun the political "rentrée" almost two weeks early.

While half of France still lay on the beaches of the Med, and the rest of the country dodged showers in Brittany or the south-west, Sarkozy was back behind his desk at the Elysée Palace yesterday. The "Omnipresident", aka the "Tsarkozy", called three ministerial meetings on his first day in the office. Two of them were emergency meetings. One was merely urgent,

The French president's holiday in a luxury lakeside mansion in New Hampshire was hardly ripple-free. At one point, Sarkozy, who usually loves to be in the public eye, jumped aboard a press launch, like an angry pop star, to protest against his holidays appearing on the TV news. His unpredictable wife, Cécilia, failed to attend a Franco-American presidential picnic given by President George Bush and most of the extended Bush clan. Mme Sarkozy said she had a "sore throat". She was seen shopping the day before and again the day afterwards. M. Sarkozy took the unusual stop of telephoning the newspaper Le Monde himself at the weekend to admit that his holidays had been paid for by two families of billionaire friends. "Say what you like about me," he said. "I don't want you to talk about Cécilia."

This Presidential edict was - to Le Monde's credit - ignored. The newspaper's front-page in its Saturday-Sunday-Monday edition was dominated by a large cartoon by Plantu of Cécilia as Queen Marie Antoinette in a flouncy pink dress with a Prada shopping bag over her arm. A tiny Sarkozy, dressed as Louis XVI, was pictured examining a list of economic crises, including a rise in the price of wheat and bread. The cartoon Cécilia said, predictably: "Let them eat cake."

Cécilia is at the heart of another potentially damaging Sarkozy controversy. Evidence accumulates to suggest that the President did make trade deals with Libya in July to permit his wife-cum-special-envoy to claim credit for the already-likely release of the unjustly condemned Bulgarian and Palestinian nurses and doctor.

Meanwhile, the French economy is stuttering. A ?13bn package of tax cuts, mostly for the well off, pushed through in July was intended to boost confidence and growth. It has not. Franco-German relations are strained. Chancellor Angela Merkel has rejected Sarkozy's suggestion of an emergency G8 summit to discuss the implications of the American banking crisis.

Sarkozy is almost 100 days into a presidency which will, he promises, transform France. Is everything going wrong? Hardly. Not yet at any rate. President Sarkozy still enjoys stratospheric approval ratings, in the mid to high 60s. The "rentrée", or September-October period, is a pivotal time in the political timetables of all countries. In France it is crucial. The real tests of the Sarkozy presidency lie ahead.

What exactly does Sarkonomics involve? Is the President's seemingly bizarre blend of tax cuts and government activism simply crowd-pleasing opportunism? Or is it a coherent new political creed for the post-Bush, post-Blair era?

The French Left is still shouting, mostly at itself. The unions seem reluctant to take on such a popular president. Sarkozy, who was demonised on the Left during the campaign, is now admired by many moderate left-wing voters. They like the way that he talks of the necessity for a more "moral", less speculative form of capitalism. They like the fact that he has opened his government to left-wing personalities and to racial minorities.

Sarkozy has correctly identified many of the causes of France's relative economic decline. The French work, on average, substantially fewer hours per year than other Europeans. The French taxation system impedes job creation, especially the heavy payroll taxes that fund health care and the dole. Four in ten French workers are employed by the state.

The President has popularity to burn. Taking on the corporate interests which block radical reform- not just on the left - will require him to throw some of that popularity on the bonfire. So far Sarkozy has appeared to be driven largely by a desire - almost a compulsion - to impress public opinion, and to appease his wife.

Friends feared that Cécilia might prove to be Sarkozy's Achilles heel. The president was himself heard to say at the 14 July garden party at the Elysée: "Mon seul souci est Cécilia." ("My only anxiety is Cécilia.") The exact state of the First Marriage is a mystery. It appears that the President has promised his wife that she can be, simultaneously, in the public eye and out of it. She can be publicly glorified for performing heroic and noble deeds, such as the release of the Libyan prisoners. She will not be filmed when she is out shopping.

This is demagoguery worthy of the Third World or Ceausescu's Romania. Sarkozy's friends control a large bloc of the French media but not enough to deliver such foolish promises. More Cécilia trouble can be expected. Two of the ministerial meetings called today equally point to the shallowness of Sarkozy's approach. The President has promised to crack down on repeat criminal offenders. He also promised during the election campaign to give generous tax breaks to home buyers as part of his attempt - Thatcher-like - to transform France into a property-owning democracy.

Last week a 61-year-old convicted paedophile was arrested in the north of France after abducting and violating a boy of five. He had been freed from prison just 45 days before. The system for monitoring him had failed. His prison doctor, mystifyingly, prescribed him Viagra before his release. The French government announced a series of new measures yesterday, including tougher sentences, to try to prevent paedophiles from re-offending. Just before the summer break, the government, amid great fanfare, had pushed through a wider law against recidivism. According to police unions and magistrates, both sets of reforms evade the heart of the problem: the chaotic organisation and the chronic shortage of resources of the judicial and prison system.

Last week also, the French constitutional court overturned part of President Sarkozy's homeowners' charter. Determined to play to the gallery, the president had ignored ministerial advice and insisted that the tax breaks should apply to existing home owners, not just new buyers. This has been rejected as unconstitutional. Neither issue is central to the success or failure of Sarkozyisme but they do suggest a worrying pattern.

As interior minister, where he made his reputation, Sarkozy was celebrated for his all-action, look-at-me style. Much of what he did, or claimed to do, later turned out to be more cosmetic than real. Is Sarkozy a man of action, as he claims, or, like his predecessor, an action-man impersonator?

Source of information: http://wn.com