XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: democrats@suck.com   
      
   Supporters of French President Francois Hollande have awoken   
   each morning for the last four weeks thinking things surely   
   could get no worse.   
      
   Already, unemployment figures remained stubbornly high. Economic   
   growth was close to zero. The president's popularity was near   
   rock bottom.   
      
   Yet things have gotten worse.   
      
   It started with a public rebellion by a handful of government   
   ministers, resulting in a government reshuffle. Among those   
   sacked were Housing Minister Cecile Duflot, of the Green Party,   
   who described Hollande as "the president of nobody" and "Big   
   Ears."   
      
   Then it was revealed that the newly appointed foreign trade   
   minister had not paid his taxes because, he said, he suffered   
   from "administration phobia."   
      
   Next, Hollande's political woes turned deeply personal when   
   former First Lady Valerie Trierweiler settled scores with an   
   intimate kiss-and-tell book of their relationship, which ended   
   in January after the president was photographed visiting an   
   actress.   
      
   Of Trierweiler's allegations, perhaps the most harmful was her   
   claim that the Socialist leader actually despised the poor,   
   calling them "les sans dents" (the toothless), seen as a   
   reference not just to their inability to afford dental care but   
   also their relative unimportance.   
      
   On Tuesday, Hollande's government will face a confidence vote in   
   Parliament, and nobody is tempting fate by thinking things   
   cannot get worse still.   
      
   The government has seen its large majority whittled away by   
   defections, and though parliamentary experts think it will win   
   the vote by a paper-thin margin, not even Prime Minister Manuel   
   Valls is making a public guarantee.   
      
   "There could always be an accident," Valls told France's main   
   Sunday newspaper, Le Journal du Dimanche.   
      
   For Hollande and Valls, the worst-case scenario would be what   
   Eddy Fougier, a political analyst from the French think tank   
   Institute for International and Strategic Relations, described   
   as the "kamikaze" option. This would involve left-wing members   
   of the Socialist Party, who call themselves frondeurs, or   
   rebels, abstaining because they object to Valls' social democrat   
   program and pro-business proposals.   
      
   Hollande would then be forced to call a snap legislative   
   election, and given his profound unpopularity — polls suggest up   
   to two-thirds of French people want his resignation before his   
   term ends in 2017 — the majority of Socialist members of   
   Parliament, including many frondeurs, could well lose their   
   seats.   
      
   Valls is relying on the divided left avoiding self-destruction   
   but needs an absolute majority of votes in the 577-seat National   
   Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, on Tuesday.   
      
   "If the Socialists turn against Hollande, they will have to go   
   back to the ballot boxes and risk defeat. In this case they've   
   everything to lose by abstaining, so they probably won't," said   
   Madani Cheurfa, researcher at the Center for Political Research   
   at the Sciences Po Institute.   
      
   However, as Cheurfa points out, a narrow win, though not   
   catastrophic for Hollande or Valls, is likely to halt any   
   significant reforms and paralyze the rest of the president's two   
   years in office. Obtaining parliamentary approval for the 2015   
   budget, due to be presented to Parliament at the beginning of   
   October, would be "a real problem," Cheurfa says.   
      
   While Hollande projects the air of a statesman on the   
   international stage, he is facing attack on all sides at home.   
      
   His election promises to lower the unemployment rate — now at   
   10.3% — and reduce the public deficit to 3% — currently 4.4% of   
   gross domestic product — look hollow.   
      
   His failure to unite the fractious Socialist Party has left him   
   politically weakened, and Trierweiler's popular tome has exposed   
   him to public ridicule.   
      
   Hollande faces journalists Thursday in his first news conference   
   since the release of Trierweiler's book. He is likely to face a   
   political and personal grilling.   
      
   Waiting in the wings are former center-right President Nicolas   
   Sarkozy, almost certain to announce his presidential candidacy   
   for 2017, and Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right   
   National Front, who, a recent poll suggested, would beat   
   Hollande in a second-round presidential runoff.   
      
   Willsher is a special correspondent.   
      
   http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-france-hollande-20140916-   
   story.html   
      
       
      
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