Can it get any worse for François Hollande? Affairs are nothing new in French presidential history - Valérie Giscard d'Estaing had a car crash at dawn with a milk float while returning from a night with a lover. His approval ratings subsequently went up. Chirac was privately dubbed "five minutes, including shower." But in Hollande's case, the French are unlikely to be amused given his failure to get a grip on running the country properly. Nicolas Sarkozy learned at his expense that the French can be very unforgiving about their presidents living it up while the country is a pall of gloom. His woes began just as his whirlwind romance with Carla Bruni took flight. But potentially even more worrying for Hollande is how his official partner, unkindly nicknamed "Rottweiler" will respond this time. If she goes ballistic, the fallout for Hollande - already France's most unpopular president ever - could be catastrophic. With details of the affair emerging, France was left wondering how the wily leader can possibly turn the situation around at a major New Year's press conference next week. He might be able to bat off questions about his alleged nocturnal excursions by citing his right to a private life, but will find it harder to deflect claims that he is a floundering leader. A sense of national malaise gripped France this week as it grappled with why tens of thousands of compatriots were queuing up to attend shows by a rabidly anti-Semitic stand-up comedian. For the past three weeks, the Socialist government has been locked in a legal arm-wrestle with Dieudonné to ban his shows as a threat to "public order." They lost a first round, when a court lifted a ban in his first venue in Nantes, but Manuel Valls, the interior finally cried "victory for the Republic" when France's constitutional court upheld the ban half an hour before the show. But many politicians felt the matter was for the courts, not the government, and that the heavy-handed approach could turn Dieudonné into a "martyr." It is significant that the electoral group the least opposed to Dieudonné is the far-Right Front National, polled to come first in European elections in June, and which could swipe sizeable towns in municipal elections in March. With his back to the wall, Hollande surprised France in his New Year's address by admitting that taxes had become "too heavy, much too heavy." He pledged to cut labour costs and public spending, praised "supply side" politics and promised to "stamp out welfare abuse"- normally language that is anathema to the French Left. This led sections of the press to ask, had France finally found its "François Blair" or "Gerhard Hollande" - a pragmatic Left-winger ready to reform. Pro-business zeal or empty rhetoric? The jury is out as to how he intends to cut state spending by 50 billion euros over the next three years. A verdict will fall next week, when he details cuts at the press conference and meetings with labour unions and employers. But with his private life once again muddying the waters, the French will rightly ask themselves, when will their leader just get on with the job?