French not happy over Sarkozy’s high-profile affair
An opinion poll published yesterday said Mr Sarkozy’s popularity rating plunged 13 points in January to 41% on the back of widespread voter discontent over the president’s handling of the economy and the rising cost of living.
“It is a slump of rare proportions,” independent pollsters LH2 said in a commentary on their survey.
The poll was published just two days after Sarkozy married his girlfriend Carla Bruni, a supermodel-turned-popstar who had been dating the president for three months.
“The French and Sarkozy ... Divorce,” left-wing daily Liberation said in a front page headline, commenting on the monthly poll, carried out on February 1 and 2 among 1,300 people.
LH2 said Mr Sarkozy’s high-profile romance with Ms Bruni, which was played out across the French press, was poorly perceived by voters who thought his celebrity-drenched private life had dented the dignity of his office.
“He is vulgar, rude and not in the right role as president of the republic,” a leftist sympathiser was quoted as saying in the LH2 survey.
A rightist voter said: “He is seen as a popstar when that is not at all his job.”
In all, 76% of those questioned disapproved of the way his private life had been put on display for all to see.
Perhaps responding to such criticism, Saturday’s wedding at the Elysee Palace was extremely low key, with not even the official presidential photographer present to record the event — let alone the paparazzi.
The poll followed another survey released last week that showed Mr Sarkozy’s confidence rating down eight percentage points in January to 41%, the lowest level since he took office last May.
LH2’s chief pollster Francois Miquet-Marty said that the only precedent for such a dive in support came in 1996, when backing for Mr Sarkozy’s predecessor Jacques Chirac fell off a cliff following strikes over his doomed attempt to reform pensions.
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