Sarkozy’s ratings tumbling down

President Nicolas Sarkozy discreetly marked his first year in power (Tuesday May 6) with a trip to the south of France aimed at showing his determination to push on with contested reforms despite tumbling opinion poll ratings.

Sarkozy visited a factory near Avignon and outlined plans for improving older people's employment prospects and for hiking pension payments.

He will attend a low-key dinner with his ministers back in Paris to mark the anniversary.

The 53-year-old rightwinger’s failure to deliver on his key pledge to boost spending power for the French has helped make him the country's most unloved president in decades.

Le Parisien Newspaper wrote: "He promised rupture and, on that front, the French have not been disappointed.

"The successor to Jacques Chirac has launched a flurry of reforms and demystified the presidential function to the point of disorientating public opinion and making his popularity plummet.”

After Sarkozy defeated the Socialist Segolene Royal last May, his opinion poll ratings were as high as 67 percent in his first months in power.

But the French soon grew disillusioned, especially when his private life - divorce from Cecilia in October and marriage to singer Carla Bruni - seemed to take up more of his energy than solving the country's problems.

This week Sarkozy’s rating slid another four points to 36 percent, according to an LH2 poll released Monday, with 53 percent of respondents saying they would back Royal for president if given the chance to vote again.

Analysts say that Sarkozy also made the mistake of announcing too many projects at the same time and then being unable to deliver quickly on all of them.

But they also note that Sarkozy's reform track record after his first year at the helm is good.

They point to his easing of France's 35-hour work week, the shortest in Europe, his reduction of pension benefits for state workers, and his reform of the country's impoverished and overcrowded universities.

The president has also streamlined France's notoriously complicated labour laws, and under his watch unemployment has fallen to 7.5 percent, its lowest level in two decades.

But polls show it was his failure to raise the standard of living that has most damaged his popularity.

Sarkozy last month admitted his government could have done more to explain its reforms to voters.

He has blamed high oil and food prices, the strong euro and the world financial crisis for the lack of improvement in living standards since his election.

He also reaffirmed his commitment to modernising the French economy.

Political analyst Jean-Luc Parodi, who predicts that the global financial crisis and unpopular reforms will keep Sarkozy in negative ratings for the foreseeable future, warned however that Sarkozy's "unpopularity will damage his reform project."

After Sarkozy's UMP party was trounced in March local elections, the president embarked on an image makeover to become more "presidential" and end a lifestyle perceived as flamboyant.

Roland Cayrol of the CSA polling institute said: "He's telling the French he has understood the message.

"Now he needs to show he has changed his behaviour so that people think the new Sarkozy has arrived."