PARIS: Elected nearly two years ago promising to bring radical change to France, President Nicolas Sarkozy appears to have lost his reformist zeal, fearful of social conflict and economic hardship.

Although his trademark hyperactivity remains intact, the president has suddenly applied the brakes to his reform agenda, putting off a shake-up of the high school system and a long-promised liberalisation of Sunday trading laws.

“He has moved from wanting transformation to seeking protection,” said Francois Miquet-Marty, head of the polling institute ViaVoice. “The future is looking particularly dangerous, and Nicolas Sarkozy is on the defensive.”

Like that of most developed countries, France’s economy went off the rails in the last quarter of 2008 and looks unlikely to get back on track until at least the second half of 2009.

Sarkozy managed to push through a spate of important reforms immediately after taking office in 2007, regenerating the staid university system and putting an end to pension privileges for a swathe of public sector workers.

In a nation that is notoriously resistant to change, he often managed to sweeten the medicine with costly concessions, but such largesse is impossible in an age of budget restraint.

The electorate, so enthused by his 2007 campaign pledge of “rupture”, a “break with the past”, also appear less willing to embrace reform at such a time, preferring to cling to the comforts provided by a generous, interventionist state.

“The French don’t like change in general, but even less so during a crisis, and above all not the sort of change that France needs, like a reduction in state spending,” said Philippe Maniere, head of the strategy firm Footprint Consultants.

Bowing to the street

Sarkozy’s first major retreat came at the end of last year when he hastily withdrew plans to modernise the school system in the face of growing student demonstrations.

Student protests have a tendency to balloon out of control in France, and Sarkozy was clearly worried about the risk of contagion from the youth riots that rocked Greece last month.The government also quietly watered down controversial plans to cut teaching numbers in the well-staffed education system.

“France is one of the most difficult countries to govern,” Sarkozy told a group of reporters last week, harking back to the French Revolution of the late 18th century.

“Louis XVI, with his young wife, was one of the most loved kings for 10 years. Both of them ended with their heads on the block.”

Political analysts say Sarkozy should be more worried about the fate of his predecessor, Jacques Chirac.

Like Sarkozy, Chirac took office promising a blaze of initiatives, but he gave up much of his reform agenda after caving in to street protests just months into the job in 1995.

“Sarkozy resembles Chirac much more than is perhaps thought,” said Jean-Thomas Lesueur, head of the Thomas More Institute think tank in Paris.

“Like Chirac, he does not have a very pronounced ideological vision. He is not a French Thatcher. I don’t think he likes big ideas. He doesn’t trust them. He is pragmatic, which is not well understood.”

Reforms ahead

Government officials insist that Sarkozy is continuing with his programme of renewal, arguing that reforms are being reworked rather than rejected.

They also point to projects announced for 2009, such as a major change to the judicial system, as proof that Sarkozy has not lost his taste for reform.

“The president does not want to rush the French people. He will try to move forward where he thinks he can make progress,” said a cabinet minister, who declined to be named.

But opponents have leapt on his hesitant start to 2009. Even as he unveils new policy pitches, they say, much heralded bills of 2008 are still languishing in parliament, such as a project to promote sustainable development.

“No sooner announced, his reforms are overtaken by subsequent reforms, without anyone checking to see if the previous one was implemented or if it has the slightest chance of being so,” said centrist leader Francois Bayrou.

Meanwhile Sarkozy keeps up his perpetual motion, mixing major international initiatives, such as his bid last week to end the fighting in Gaza, with a raft of speeches across France outlining his domestic programme.

Ministers say he plans to redraw local administrative bureaucracies, change hospital management structures and introduce a new range of environmentally-friendly policies.

All of these are likely to be budget-neutral. The reduction in massive state spending that analysts say heavily-indebted France must tackle looks certain to be delayed.

“I doubt that we will see really meaningful, ambitious or top quality reform during a period of economic crisis and budget restraint,” said Lesueur, of the Thomas More Institute.—Reuters