They may not have a lot in common but François Fillon is making Sarkozy look good ahead of polls
He is widely seen as the government’s best hope of avoiding a humiliating defeat at the ballot box
CAN IT really be that, only a year ago, people were calling François Fillon the Invisible Man of French politics? In the dizzying early days of Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency, journalists tended to turn their attention to Hôtel Matignon, the prime minister’s official residence, only to ruminate on the strange silence emanating from within.
With the restless and popular hyperprésidenttaking control of major domestic reforms and his soap opera lifestyle making him a daily fixture in the media, a popular image gradually took hold of his reserved, discreet prime minister as a sidelined functionary.
Almost three years into the government’s term, however, all of that has changed. French voters are due to go to the polls in regional elections later this month, and with the president’s approval ratings having sunk to record depths, Fillon has become the ubiquitous and indispensable one.
The public’s cooling towards Sarkozy means that those qualities that distinguish Fillon from the president and until now kept him largely out of the limelight – his consensual instinct and his calm, measured style – have pushed him centre-stage.
Against all precedent in modern French politics, the prime minister’s popularity ratings have risen as the president’s have fallen, and with the ruling UMP party’s candidates queuing to be photographed with him on the campaign trail, he is widely seen as the government’s best hope of avoiding a humiliating defeat at the ballot box. Little wonder that the news magazine Le Point headlined a recent piece “Fillon, superstar”.
The marriage of Sarkozy and Fillon, France’s couple exécutif, has been a union of reason since the beginning, says Alix Bouilhaguet, the author of a new book on the relationship. Both in their mid-50s with extensive experience in government, they share the distinction of having fallen out with former president Jacques Chirac and of entering politics without having studied at grandes écoles, the traditional finishing schools for the French elite. And although Fillon is regarded as coming from the left of the UMP, they have similar beliefs on economic policy.
But in other ways, the impetuous urbanite and the measured "country gentleman" (as Fillon is sometimes mocked) have little in common. Bouilhaguet, who covers Matignon for France 2 television, called her book La Carpe et le Lapin, or 'The Carp and the Rabbit', an allusion to a French expression for an unlikely marriage between opposites.
Some of the revelations in Bouilhaguet’s book have made headlines, including the disclosures that Sarkozy offered Fillon the job of prime minister in 2004 – three years before he stood for election (“I’m going to win, and I’d like you to be my prime minister,” he reportedly said) – and that the relationship between the two men grew so tense that Fillon offered to resign as prime minister during a row in September 2008.
But in the past year, she believes, Fillon has managed to impose himself on the domestic agenda and a certain equilibrium prevails between them.
A pattern has been established where a political reversal for Sarkozy – most recently the Constitutional Court’s rejection of his carbon tax and his retreat from the debate on national identity – is the cue for Fillon to step forward and calm things down.
“They’ve found a way of working together well. The parameters have been set down [and] François Fillon has found his style, but there is no affection between them,” Bouilhaguet remarks.
The most talked about disclosure in the book, however is that Fillon told the author he expects to be removed from the prime minister’s office some time in the middle of next year, allowing Sarkozy time to give his government a refreshing face-lift in the build-up to the presidential election in 2012.
Sarkozy may well be haunted by the memory of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the right-wing former president who bucked tradition by retaining the same prime minister (Raymond Barre) for five years and then failed in his bid for re-election.
Irrespective of when Fillon does leave Matignon, however, his new-found status gives rise to an intriguing question for Paris’s chattering political class. Does he have his eyes on the presidency?
Few doubt that Sarkozy will stand for re-election in 2012, but his public claims not to have decided yet have given people room to speculate.
And with Fillon addressing packed halls across the country and giving statesmanlike speeches in Afghanistan, Syria and Jordan, his name is invariably the first in the frame when the succession is mentioned.
For all that, however, Bouilhaguet discounts the possibility – at least for as long as Sarkozy chooses to remain. Fillon has not built a power base in the party and shows little sign of manoeuvring for position. Above all, she says, he is endlessly loyal.
“When he says he will never be a candidate against Nicolas Sarkozy, I think we should take him at his word.”