STOCK MARKET WATCH - Monday, 12 March 2012

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41. A Weakened Sarkozy Faces His Last Big Campaign

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,819602,00.html

Nicolas Sarkozy is unpopular because he has behaved more like an upstart than a president. He's trying to get re-elected, claiming to have changed, but it might be too late. The French people prefer his Socialist opponent François Hollande, who would bring change to France and upheaval to Europe.

Once again, Nicolas Sarkozy and his people are not on speaking terms. Visiting a huge construction site for a soccer stadium in Nice, he marches over the rubble in his dark-blue suit and dark-blue tie, feet spread wide apart in his strange, jerky gait. His face is waxen and wan. He appears tense.

Today Sarkozy is meeting young people whom state programs are meant to help find training and jobs, but they are of little interest to him and he makes no effort to hide that fact.

The President morosely asks them all the same question: "And where do you want to work in the future?" But he barely listens to their flustered answers and doesn't stand still for long. He looks like someone with other things on his mind -- Angela Merkel, for example.

Standing reverently before him, the young people don't know what to say to the man who rolled up in a convoy of a dozen cars, looking as if he just stepped out of a spaceship.