Beleaguered Sarkozy faces yet another tough week

Already under attack from Europe over Roma expulsions, unions over pension reform and the press over financial scandal, President Nicolas Sarkozy now faces yet another tough week.

But, with his rock-bottom opinion poll ratings falling once again, France’s mercurial leader appears determined to press on regardless, despite strikes, street protests and a barrage of international criticism.

With less than two years to run before he must seek re-election, Mr Sarkozy opened the newspapers Sunday to find his personal approval rating falling four points to 32 per cent in an IFOP poll carried out for the Journal du Dimanche.

Voters are fearful for their jobs in a weak recovery and dismayed by his moves to raise the retirement age, but Mr Sarkozy hopes to win them back by taking a tough stance on law and order and immigration in the run-up to the vote.

“Mr Sarkozy is tempted to do just anything at all to stay in power,” complained Green Euro-MP Daniel Cohn-Bendit in an interview with Le Parisien, comparing the French leader to Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Cohn-Bendit accused the President of having made a “petty calculation” that he can win in 2012 by drawing in votes from the anti-immigration far-right to shore up his conservative centre-right base.

“It won’t work, and the political tone is getting more harsh,” he said, warning Mr Sarkozy’s deliberate stirring up of racial and security issues would play into the hands of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s hardline National Front.

The crackdown on Roma – Mr Sarkozy has ordered police to dismantle Gypsy camps and expel foreign-born travellers – certainly stirred up the political scene in Europe, triggering an ugly row at last week’s EU summit in Brussels.

He clashed privately with European Commission chairman José Manuel Barroso and publicly with Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, over the charge that France’s policy was a racist throwback to World War II Nazi tactics.

The spat annoyed France’s European partners, even its traditional partner Germany which was forced to deny a claim by Mr Sarkozy that it intends to launch its own Roma round-up, but might play into his hands at home.