We learn from an article in Le Figaro that Nicolas Sarkozy has come close to threatening his ministers with dismissal (after the upcoming municipal elections on March 9 and 16) either for having become discouraged over his poor ratings or for not coming to his defense.

President Sarkozy is quoted as saying:

I listen, I read, I hear everything that is said. After the municipal elections, I will, with sang-froid, make the necessary decisions.

Sang-froid, used in English as well, can be "composure" or "cool", but it also has the literal meaning of "in cold blood."
 
Le Figaro points out that Prime Minister François Fillon is now more popular than the president, but not exempt from axe that may fall on many heads if the elections are not favorable to Sarkozy. And at this moment, that appears to be the prognosis. There have been rumors, strongly denied, that Minister of Finance Christine Lagarde was considering resigning.
 
A few days ago it was learned that Sarkozy and Carla Bruni had brought a lawsuit against the Irish airline Ryanair for using a photograph of them in an ad. Bruni was awarded 60,000 euros in damages which she donated to a charity. Now, Sarkozy is suing the Internet press. Yves Daoudal writes at his blog:

Nicolas Sarkozy is suing again. This time for "lies, usage of lies and harboring a criminal," against the Internet site of Le Nouvel Observateur, that had claimed one week before his marriage to Carla that Nicolas had sent an cell-phone message to Cécilia (his ex-wife) saying: "If you come back, I'll cancel everything." […] [G]oing after the press in court, something that neither Mitterand or Chirac had ever done despite some very malicious attacks and "revelations", will bring Sarkozy many more troubles that an innocuous bit of gossip on some mysterious SMS.

The main interest in this story is that he has sued a website. Let's hope he doesn't set a precedent.
 
Laurent Dandrieu, a writer for the Valeurs Actuelles Blog analyses Sarkozy's current popularity slump:

In order to explain the spectacular fall in Nicolas Sarkozy's popularity rating, two reasons are generally put forth: the embarrassing exhibition of his private life, and the absence of a positive result concerning purchasing power. To these two reasons, that certainly carry their weight, I think we have forgotten to add two others, the first one contained in the second.
The first is the disastrous effect on the right-wing fringe of the electorate by the proposition of the Attali Commission, approved of by the president, to "relaunch" an immigration policy that nobody, despite the fine arithmetic of Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux, believes had ever been stopped.
This leads to the second reason which is, to put it politely, a slight "deficit" in coherence. Though the French are less Cartesian than they used to be, they are still Cartesian enough not to accept being told, on a particular topic, one thing and then its opposite: for example, being told that we must preserve national identity, and then that we must "relaunch" immigration; that the voice of the people rejecting the European Constitution was heard, and then that Parliament was convened to ratify it without the consent of the people; that we must finish once and for all with May '68, only to be subjected to the daily display of a life style that seems to come right from the "unlimited pleasures" of Cohn-Bendit and his friends; that we must recognize the Christian roots of France at the precise moment when plans for instant divorce and for ending the ban on Sunday as a work day are placed before the legislature; that we must end the intellectual domination of the Left, only to entrust a study on modernizing France to the man who was François Mitterand's sherpa

Sarkozy is lucky that there is no credible alternative on the right. Last week, Marine Le Pen, the deputy leader of her father’s Front National party, repeated that there will be no collaboration between the FN and either Bruno Mégret or Philippe de Villiers.
 
Mégret broke with the FN in 1999, and formed his own party the MNR. He has not managed to reconcile with the party, primarily (it is said) because Marine, who regards him as a traitor to her father's party, refuses to compromise with him. Philippe de Villiers never was part of the FN. He formed his own conservative, pro-sovereignty, anti-Islamic party, the MPF, but did so poorly in the presidential election, that he threw his support to Sarkozy. His critics had predicted all along that he would do just that.
 
Marine Le Pen said that “Bruno Mégret's credibility has been ruined as far as the members and cadres of the FN are concerned.” She added that she would not be surprised if Philippe de Villiers were to enter the Sarkozy government: “During his entire career, at every election, [Villiers] presented himself as an opposition candidate to the establishment party, and every time, at the last minute, he sold himself. I believe that today, one cannot have any more indulgence for these false combats. You either defend the nation or you don't. If you are an accomplice of the power structure that does everything to destroy the nation, and especially if you enter the government, you are nothing more than a collaborator of the globalists.”
 
It might be worthwhile to add that a similar accusation has been hurled at her father by many who were disenchanted with the FN. The accusation is that at every election, at the last minute, Jean-Marie Le Pen would come out with some outrageous remark, usually anti-Semitic, that would scare away enough voters and help him to lose, since he never intended to rule, only to be the voice of dissent. In the last election, counseled by his daughter, Jean-Marie Le Pen began courting Muslim support, created an incongruous publicity campaign aimed at winning immigrant voters, told the immigrants in one neighborhood that they were as French as everyone else, befriended leftist philosopher Alain Soral and anti-Semitic pro-Muslim comedian Dieudonné. In the end he scared away a substantial number of voters who shifted to Sarkozy.