Paris attacks: Hollande sheds the ‘creme caramel’ image

French President Francois Hollande attends a military ceremony in the courtyard of the Hotel National des Invalides, in Paris, Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian extremist suspected of masterminding the deadly attacks in Paris died a day ago along with his female cousin in a police raid on a suburban apartment building. (Philippe Wojazer, Pool via AP)

He has been lampooned as “a living­ marshmallow” and mocked as having “the personality of a bread mould”.

Only a few short weeks ago, a writer in London’s Spectator magazine concluded that he “appear­s to have been consigned to the political mortuary” and compared him to “a hapless captai­n of a pedalo navy”.

But in the days since last weekend’s Paris massacre France’s much-derided socialist President, Francois Hollande, who describes himself as the “Monsieur Normal” of French politics but is widely known as “Monsieur Flanby” after a wobbly brand of creme caramel dessert, has shown an unexpectedly steely underbelly in confronting jihadist terrorism.

Hollande — whose voter approv­al rating had sunk to a desperate 13 per cent, the lowest in the history­ of France’s 57-year-old Fifth Republic, because of high unemployment and economic stagnation — has reinvented himself as a decisive war leader. He has responded to the attacks with a forcefulness and decisiveness that belies the cruel character readings of his critics and contrasts with the indecision and uncertainty of some other Western leaders.

Rushed away from the Stade de France, the site of the first suicide bomb attacks, the man who has also been portrayed as the “dithering, henpecked son of a provincial doctor” ignored the advice of his security detail and headed directly to the scene of the Bataclan concert hall bloodbath.

Enraged by the barbarity of the Islamist murder of innocent civilians, he immediately declared France to be at war.

“This was an act of war committed by a terrorist army, Islamic State,” he proclaimed. “France will be merciless toward­s the Islamic State barbar­ians,” he declared, as he ordered massive bombing raids by French warplanes of the so-called jihadist caliphate’s stronghold in the Syrian­ city of Raqqa.

Key Islamic State infrastructure inexplicably ignored in months of cautious airstrikes by the US-led coalition was decimated. The pride of the French navy, the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle with its powerful additional complement of dozens more warplanes laden with lethal weaponry, was ordered to the Persian Gulf (where, tellingly, the US under President Barack Obama has had no similar deployment since 2007).

A state of emergency was promulgated across France and measures announced to strip dual nationals convicted of security offences­ of their French citizenship. Moves began to arbitrarily shut down extremist mosques.

For only the second time in 170 years, both houses of the French parliament were summoned into session at the Palace of Versailles, outside Paris, to hear a defiant “we are at war” address by Hollande and approve constitutional changes that will add significantly to the country’s armoury of anti-terrorist laws.

Remarkably, given the way he has been persistently pilloried since he swept aside Nicolas Sar­kozy and won the presidency three years ago, the tour de force by a man better known across the world for his complex private life than any achievements in office won a standing ovation.

The much-maligned Hollande had, as one veteran commentator put it, “certainly judged the nationa­l mood”.

To political allies of the French leader there is, of course, nothing surprising about the firm resolution and decisiveness he is showing in the crisis. In 2012, when Hollande was campaigning for the presidency, one of his closest political allies, Stephane Le Foll, now the Agriculture Minister, said: “People have always underestimated Francois. There is a steel and clarity that you don’t see.”

To such supporters, his leadership in the face of the horrifying jihadi­st onslaught vindicates that assessment.

They insist there should be no surprise about his toughness, pointing out that although it is seldom mentioned, while Hollande may have a miserable record in domestic politics, he has a history of real achievement in inter­national and security affairs.

While other Western leaders timorously wonder about boots on the ground anywhere, Hollande, previously perceived to be the least martial of them all, has not hesitated to rush in French soldiers to repel jihadists in the African nation­ of Mali and stop genocide in the Central African Republic.

Ten thousand French soldiers are now based in the region to protec­t the 25 French-speaking former African colonies against jihadist­ subversion. By contrast, the huge West African­ nation of Nigeria, a former British colony, gets little outside help in its battle against the Boko Haram jihadists linked to Islamic State.

When the US and other Western nations seemed prepared to give Iran all it wanted in the recent negotiations over a nuclear deal, Hollande was firm in putting his foot on the brake and declaring “non”. The result, to Tehran’s chagrin, is the “snapback” mechanism allowin­g sanctions to be auto­matic­ally reimposed if Iran breaks its word on the deal.

When German Chancellor Angel­a Merkel seemed determined to force a Greek exit from the eurozone, Hollande opposed her and won the battle to keep Greece in the currency area. But Hollande, 61, a long-serving former­ Socialist Party functionary whose greatest achievement was running the provincial administration of rural Correze before he became President, has not enjoyed similar success in handling France’s domestic problems.

Wisely, he has now discarded the wacky 75 per cent “soak the rich” income tax rate policy on which he was elected. He has also abandoned a massively­ unpopular tax on French breakfast staple Nut­ella. He has become far more rational in his economic views. But un­employment remains stubbornly high.

After his handling of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks in January, Hollande got a bounce in the polls. But that didn’t last long, and it remains to be seen whether his bold handling of the current crisis is similarly short-lived.

There is a difference now. After Charlie Hebdo, Paris was the scene of countless goodwill demonstrations aiming at healing relations with France’s Muslims and creat­ing cross-community fellowship. There is little sign of that now and little doubt that Hollande’s toughness reflects the mood of an angry nation.

A short man with glasses who is a product of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, the elite college that turns out France’s bureaucrats, Hollande has been described by a British newspaper as a boring, “wobbly-chopped socialist”.

But even such perceptions of him are now changing as he maintains his relationship with the glamorous actress Julie Gayet, 18 years his junior.

Old stories about Hollande, his head hidden under a heavy, bike-rider’s helmet, clandestinely leaving the Elysee Palace on the back of a bodyguard’s motorbike to go to Gayet’s apartment, and the same bodyguard returning the next morning with a bag of breakfast croissants, continue to feed prurient perceptions of the President. But they are being overtaken by accounts of his steely resolve and determination in the face of the jihadist onslaught.

Whether this will help him win a second term in 2017 remains to be seen. It won’t be easy. He’s currentl­y trailing both Sarkozy and National Front leader Marine Le Pen. But, as French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has said, “it is in exception­al and difficult times that a statesman emerges” and there is no doubt that the Paris massacre has presented Hollande with an opportunity to prove the previous perceptions of him wrong.

Given the gravity of the crisis confronting every nation, it is impossible­ to foretell the likely course of the battle against the jihadis­t monster or its impact on any leader.

But in responding so strongly the socialist Hollande is even winning plaudits from the Right, with French daily Le Figaro declaring that his reaction “marks a turning point towards a clearer vision for eradicating the Islamists”.

Much will be heard of Hollande in coming weeks as he leads his country’s fightback against the jihadist­s and plays host to the world’s biggest-ever climate change conference, when 50,000 delegates and hangers-on will convene in Paris at the end of the month. It would be wrong to underestimate the French leader’s steely resolve on either issue.