"Determined reformer emerges from shadows"

By John Thornhill, Ben Hall, and Peggy Hollinger

"Since becoming France’s prime minister in May, François Fillon has lived in the shadow of the country’s omnipresent president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

But over the past few weeks, Mr Fillon has crept into the light as his government pushes through what he describes as France’s “biggest economic and social reform programme since the 1960s”. As the Sarkozy era moves from promise to delivery, it is perhaps natural that Mr Fillon is coming to the fore. For the moment, at least, the prime minister’s approval ratings even outshine those of the president.

“The role of the president is to open up new avenues, to bring the country with him, to encourage change. The role of the prime minister is to make things work from day to day,” Mr Fillon says in an interview with the Financial Times.

“It is not unusual that the prime minister insists on deficit reduction, on sticking to timetables, to fulfilling our promises,” adds the centre-right politician and co-author of the president’s electoral programme.

The government’s critics argue that Mr Fillon does not yet have much to show for eight months’ activity in spite of all the noise generated by Mr Sarkozy. Early attempts at bold reform – such as scrapping pension perks for public sector workers or giving universities more autonomy – ended in compromise.

Mr Sarkozy’s trumpeted promise to overhaul public finances has also struck a discordant note with France running one of the biggest budget deficits in the eurozone and government spending stuck at 53 per cent of gross domestic product.

Mr Fillon, however, insists the country is changing. What may seem modest progress by the standards of other countries counts as revolutionary in France. As promised, Mr Sarkozy is delivering a real “rupture” with the past while carrying the people with him.

“This is not the continuation of minimalist reform or reform without substance,” Mr Fillon says. “We want the French to work more, to invest more, and the state to spend less. Of course, we still have a long way to go. Our external trade balance is not good. The reduction in our deficit is not yet enough. The competitiveness of the French economy has to be improved. But we have started nearly all of the big structural reforms.”

The Attali commission, which on Wednesday published 300 proposals for further reforms, will create a lot more work for Mr Fillon’s government. But the prime minister seems happy to accept the challenge, saying he strongly supports the main recommendations, which include liberalising the retail trade and de-regulating restricted professions.

“I agree with the spirit of this report, which rests on a simple idea: injecting competition into many parts of the French economy,” Mr Fillon says. “Competition is a means, which I place at the heart of my policy.”

How does that square with Mr Sarkozy’s insistence last year that the European Union drop references to “free and undistorted competition” from its amended institutional treaty?

Mr Fillon sees no contradiction. “Mr Sarkozy is someone for whom competition is part of life,” he says. “If you present competition as a way of cutting prices, living better and creating jobs, the French will accept it. If you present competition as a religion, as an objective in itself, the French will be against.”

In his cosy office in the Matignon, the mild-mannered Mr Fillon appears markedly different to the aggressive Mr Sarkozy. But as a regular participant in the 24-hour road race held in Le Mans, where he was born, he knows how to take corners at speed.

France, he argues, is less exposed than many other developed countries to the credit turmoil that is roiling the global economy because its banks, enterprises and households are not so heavily indebted. But he accepts that a US slowdown and a strong euro will constrain growth. France’s economy expanded at about 2 per cent in 2007 and Mr Fillon suggests it will come close to that again this year.

“These difficulties will only reinforce the government’s determination to move swiftly and far with structural reforms.”"