Where is France one year after the 'historic' victory of Nicolas Sarkozy? Let's recall our forecasts made immediately after it: 'I, however, have many reserves that he will be capable of overcoming the inertia of the domestic system; I'm afraid that some day he may be remembered only because of another rather secondary event that will be decided mainly by someone else'. And, another one made shortly afterwards: 'His priorities, announced publicly in advance of the parliament elections due this coming June (2007), show that, at best, he has already decided to lose the first year of his term on secondary issues. At worst, he might have lost the unique chance to use his first days as president in order to produce enough momentum and bring France back from its stagnation'. Well, Sarkozy did it and did it well. The first year in office went without major breakthroughs, and the only 'major' events we might be able one day to associate the French president with, was his divorce and new marriage, not exactly events the highest office in France is designed to be associated with.

And the consequences of this 'lost' year are already part of the French newspapers' headlines: the president is disliked by as many as half of its fellow citizens. Despite some improvements in the picture of unemployment, people still fear being fired and still put these fears at the top of their political agenda. France, unlike many other West European nations, isn't facing demographic crisis, at least not in short-term. This lack of problem, by irony, eliminates one of the standard solutions for fighting the unemployment by replacing the large older cohorts with smaller younger cohorts. In France this solution obviously won't work, at least for some time. What does work is the state capacity of hiring an ever-increasing number of civil servants. At least it hides well many unemployed from the official statistics. Another originally leftist medication was to reduce the number of weekly hours for workers to no more than 35, expecting that many new part-time employees will produce the necessary benign effect for the statistics. All initiatives of the new president go in the same direction: making more part-time and precarious workers do the same work as more full-time workers used to do. The net benefit for the society that still doesn't produce more wealth to absorb the unemployed is doubtful.

To be honest, not all 'malaise' in France is due to the president, although he makes it worse by apparently doing nothing to ease the situation. The weak U.S. dollar, meaning strong Euro, is a handicap for the French economy that is still very dependent on world exports denominated in U.S. dollars (airspace industry, agriculture, luxury goods). The GDP growth in 2007 went down, and the inflation is up again. Worse, the EU doesn't have much leverage to help countries like France, most other West European countries are in a similar bad situation. Worse even, the financial needs for integration of the new EU members cause 'bleeding' to the older members, money that otherwise may be used in promoting new technologies go to repair roads, clean air, and finally may end up in the pockets of corrupt former communist apparatchiks. This doesn't excuse the French president and his government, but should be taken into account when working on our verdict.

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