Nicolas Sarkozy will relaunch his presidency in an effort to counter growing disenchantment with his Government, amid bitter criticism of his liaison with a former supermodel.

The tide has turned on the once invincible “Super-Sarko” since the newly divorced President showed off Carla Bruni, 39, on Christmas trips to Egypt and Jordan and proclaimed his love for her on national television.

As Mr Sarkozy did nothing to quash rumours that he had already married Ms Bruni, a poll indicated yesterday that his ratings have turned negative for the first time. Forty-eight per cent say that he is doing a poor job, compared with 45 per cent who approve.

Older voters have “turned off massively” from Mr Sarkozy because of what are regarded as his unseemly antics with Ms Bruni, the BVA polling agency said. Denis Muzet, director of the Institut Médiascopie, a media studies organisation, said: “France is in crisis. The French want a crisis president and not a partying president.”

Senior figures in Mr Sarkozy's own party are dismayed at the clash between the President's playboy conduct and the view held by 65 per cent of the public that he has failed so far to relieve France's economic gloom.

To start shedding his new nickname of “President Bling Bling”, Mr Sarkozy is to visit Sens, a town south of Paris, tomorrow to show his determination to spur the recovery that he promised in his election campaign last spring.

His first attempt to revamp his image, at the Élysée Palace last week, backfired when he seemed indifferent to the cost of living and chatted like a teenager about “Carla and me”.

He has been damaged further by Cécilia Ciganer, his wife until last October, who is quoted in a new book as calling him a skinflint lothario who parties all night “with women whose name he doesn't remember”.

While the Socialist opposition has been likening Mr Sarkozy to Louis XIV, the self-obsessed Sun King, officials in his Union for a Popular Movement are worried that the backlash could translate into losses in nationwide council elections in March.

MPs are counting on François Fillon, the low-key Prime Minister, to reassure the party's traditional voters that the Government still has its feet on the ground. Mr Fillon's popularity has risen as he has emerged over past weeks as a steady pair of hands alongside the frenetic President.

Also known as ...

Super-Sarko

Speedy Sarko

L’Hyperprésident

L’Omniprésident

Le Petit Nicolas (from children’s book hero)

Le Lapin Duracell (the Energiser Bunny)

Le Président Bling Bling (since his expensive foreign holidays and especially since Carla Bruni)

Le Roi Sarko I (allusion to Louis XIV, the Sun King)

Also Le Sarko Show and Le Sark-Opéra (his Government)

Source: Charles Bremner

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