Vive Hollande?

François Hollande appears to have been consigned to the political mortuary. The first Socialist French president since François Mitterrand has been more unpopular than any of his predecessors in office — his approval rating sank to 13 per cent towards the end of last year.

His style of government has been ridiculed. His private life has been the subject of mockery. He is compared to a hapless captain of a pedalo navy or a wobbly French pudding, a Flanby.

But don’t write off Flanby just yet. Thanks to the peculiarity of French presidential elections, he may well win a second term. In order to understand how, it helps to go back to the election of 2002, when the first ballot set up a run-off between the conservative incumbent, Jacques Chirac, and Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front. The Socialist candidate, prime minister Lionel Jospin, had been edged out. It was a seminal moment in French politics. The citizens of the Fifth Republic gritted their teeth and voted for an unloved president just to keep out the far right.

It is increasingly likely that, 15 years later, the same thing will happen in reverse: the incumbent, François Hollande, will win because his opponents are divided and the National Front — although its image has softened and its popularity increased under the leadership of Jean-Marie’s daughter, Marine — is still distrusted by the majority.

For all the opprobrium, Hollande has several significant things going for him. The economy remains a huge problem and unemployment is still high, but he has finally pushed through some reform measures that, though timid, are a step in the right direction. He has struck a firm line against Islamic extremists in Africa and the Middle East. And Hollande has been portrayed domestically as the man who prevailed on Berlin to keep Greece in the euro.