For François Hollande, the man who took the presidency away from Mr. Sarkozy last May, it has been a “terrible year,” or so says even the center-left newspaper Le Monde. The paper devoted an entire section to the president’s troubles, sweeping in the ailing economy, record unpopularity in the polls, open strains with Germany and divisions within his own Socialist Party.
The bold military intervention in Mali was called “the exception” for a president who is seen as pleasant, uncharismatic and unauthoritative — read “unpresidential” — by many who supported him a year ago. In opinion polls, only a quarter of the French view him favorably.
Mr. Hollande “hasn’t kept his campaign promises, to relaunch growth, create jobs,” said Shami Bashir, 26, in an unemployment office in the Paris suburbs where he was seeking work in catering. “You have the impression things can’t go more badly, and then, bam, you hear it’s getting worse.”
Amélie Donnini, 29, said that Mr. Sarkozy “would be much better at managing the situation,” adding: “He, at least, had broad shoulders. Hollande? Pfff.”
A year into the Hollande presidency, France seems to be stumbling along, with critics speaking of an amiable aimlessness, lack of direction and discipline, of small steps in the direction of economic reform. The Socialist Party, and even some of the president’s ministers, seem to work against him and his policies, and yet there is no obvious sanctioning of the dissenters.
Even the president of the National Assembly, Claude Bartolone, a Socialist, has called for a “second wind” in the government and for a possible confrontation with Germany over austerity policies that prioritize debt reduction over stimulus for growth. Mr. Hollande “calls this ‘friendly tension’ ” with Germany, Mr. Bartolone told Le Monde. “For me, it’s tension, period, and, if needed, a confrontation.”
The open strains with Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is engaged in an election campaign that the French government clearly hopes she will lose to the Social Democrats, has been a good example of Mr. Hollande’s difficulties — and his style. He has allowed some ministers to criticize Germany sharply; he has allowed the Socialist Party to draft a paper citing Ms. Merkel’s “selfish intransigence”; he has allowed other ministers to attack the party document, which was then revised. But he has not made his own position clear.
The “kerfuffle over Germany speaks volumes,” said François Heisbourg, of the Foundation for Strategic Research. “But one would think the president would find an opportunity to state his own position clearly.” Instead, Mr. Heisbourg said, “there is a sense of drift.”
There are rumors of a coming shake-up, which the Élysée Palace will deny until it happens. For now, a senior Hollande aide describes the president as “calm” and “Zen,” conscious that he has four more years to change France and careful not to move too quickly.
But the French seem to want action in a crisis, and a president who better fits the semi-monarchical model of the Fifth Republic, not the “normal president” Mr. Hollande promised. They liked Mr. Sarkozy’s activism, even if they came to dislike his personality and style enough to dethrone him.
Mr. Hollande won a year ago because he promised “change is now” and was the “anti-Sarkozy,” said Pascal Perrineau, director of the Center for Political Research at the Institut d’Études Politiques. “But the French are not at all convinced by this normal president. He seems more like a prime minister; he does not seem to incarnate the state.”
Mr. Hollande “acts like the head of the Socialist Party, always looking for compromise at the price of a certain ambiguity,” Mr. Perrineau said.
It is one thing not to be a “hyper-president,” Mr. Perrineau said. “But what is he? A ‘hypo-president,’ a minor one.”
Mr. Heisbourg said that the problem “goes beyond the lack of authority to a widespread lack of professionalism in the government and at the Élysée.”
“The net result is extremely chaotic decision preparation and decision-making,” he added. “For the first three or four months, you expect this, but not after a year.”
Lauren Houssin contributed reporting.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/world/europe/year-into-hollande-presidency-a-sense-of-drift.html?partner=rss&emc=rss