After fronting, together with German Chancellor Angela Merkel the battle to save the euro, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is on a mission to save his own neck from a proverbial guillotining. Thursday's breakthrough accord on the eurozone debt crisis threw a lifeline to the president, following months of deepening malaise in France over the economy that has blighted his chances of winning reelection next year.
In his first television interview in eight months Thursday evening, he held up the euro deal as proof the man dubbed Super Sarko still had that Superman touch. "If there hadn't been a deal last night, it's not only Europe that was headed for catastrophe, it was the whole world," he said with a touch of drama.
Working together France and Germany had avoided "the bankruptcy of a country of nearly 10 million people, Greece," he told France 2 and TF1 channels in an joint interview at the Elysee palace. What he didn't say - but French media had - was that the fight to end the debt crisis was also a battle for his political future.
Over the past few months, the French have watched with horror as shares in the country's top banks went through the floor on the back their exposure to Greek debt and country's own debt levels have soared, forcing the government to rush through a 12-billion-euro package of deficit reduction measures. Throughout it all Sarkozy has sought to present himself as a capable crisis manager, who is standing guard over France's coveted AAA credit rating.
Meeting the EU's rules on budget deficits by 2013, by dint of some German-style "rigueur," has become his new mantra. So when Moody's rating agency warned last week that it still might hit France with a negative outlook, because of the cost to France of contributing to bailouts, it was like a slap in the face. The warning gave Sarkozy's Socialist challenger for president, Francois Hollande, an added spurt in opinion polls.
On the eve of the eurozone summit, polls showed him likely to win between 35 and 39 per cent of votes in the first round of the election in April, compared with between 23 and 25 per cent for Sarkozy. Frustrated at his failure to reverse his ratings, Sarkozy rounded on Europe's critics.
"You have lost a good opportunity to shut up," Britain's Guardian newspaper reported him as telling off British Prime Minister David Cameron last weekend. Thursday evening, with the eurozone deal in the bag, he was back on form, fielding an hour and a quarter of questions on the economy with ease.
There had never been a euro crisis, he said. The crisis was a "debt crisis" and although France was up to its neck in debt, the measures he had taken since 2007 - reforming the pension system and cutting 150,000 civil service jobs - had saved France from the fate of a Greece or Italy.
There was more pain up ahead, he warned. Further savings of 6 to 8 billion euros would have to be made. "You have to tell it like it is," he said. Was this a pitch for president? Sarkozy, who has yet to confirm he will seek reelection, looked pained by the question.
"For the moment I must manage a crisis that is worrying the French," he said, adding: "I have to protect them." For Gael Sliman, analyst for BVA polling institute, Sarkozy's stance had echoes of British leader Winston Churchill during World War II, promising "blood, toil, tears and sweat," on the road to victory.
Sarkozy's mood lightened only briefly when asked about his baby daughter Giulia. "They are marvellously well," he said of his wife Carla and daughter with smile. And then it was back to the crisis, where Sarkozy gets another shake at the title of world saviour next week when he presides over the Group of 20 summit in Cannes. France has the chair of the group of leading industrialised and emerging economies this year. In a statement Thursday, the presidency said the summit aimed to make a "decisive contribution to global growth and stability."
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