François Hollande has to convince France he has the answer On Wednesday during talks in Brussels, Mr Hollande was grudgingly given another two years to bring government spending under control but only on the condition he carries out radical economic reforms. José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission President, said that the French president needed to "present a credible reform programme so that France can regain its competitiveness." EU officials have been dismayed by comments from Pierre Moscovici, the French finance minister, who blamed German-led EU austerity policies for French economic decline. Compounding the Socialist premier's woes was the release of a fly-on-the-wall documentary in which he comes across as isolated and increasingly powerless. Le Pouvoir (The Power) by Patrick Rotman, was supposed to herald a welcome era of transparency in public life offering unprecedented access to the inner workings of the Elysée. Instead, it is threatening to turn into a public-relations nightmare, with Antoine Perraud, a critic for the news website Médiapart, saying the President comes over "as a prisoner not only of himself and his advisers but also of the presidential palace." Benjamin Sportouch of l'Express wrote: "François Hollande is likely to be kicking himself over letting the cameras in: the impression of him stumbling through the first through months of power is unlikely to serve him." In one scene, he asks speechwriters to better "characterise" his policies. "He seems to be asking them the same question electors and observers are about him, namely: 'Tell me exactly what am I doing?'," said Mr Sportouch, Perhaps most damaging for Mr Hollande is a series of scenes showing that his staff and First Lady do not appear to take him seriously. In one scene he is shown choosing his official photograph. As he and his staff ponder one photograph of him smiling his unmarried partner, Valérie Trierweiler, chimes in. You look too American, too much like Kennedy. Mr Hollande is also having struggling to control his own government. His prime minister is considered feeble while cabinet heavyweight Manuel Valls, the interior minister, has been accused of woeful amateurism for allowing notoriously violent football fans to congregate in central Paris - ending in a riot on Monday night. Cabinet infighting reached new heights this week when Laurent Fabius, the foreign minister, suggested the finance ministry needed "a boss." In another coup de grace for the president, his disgraced former budget minister, Jérôme Cahuzac - who lied to parliament about his tax fraud - has accused President Francois Hollande of "telling lies worse than his." Mr Cahuzac, who is considering a return to politics, said: "It is less serious to lie for 15 seconds before 577 MPs than to lie for a whole year about the state of France, like Francois Hollande has done."