With France feeling the effect of the worsening European economic crisis, President Francois Hollande will find fulfilling his campaign promises and maintaining the Franco-German alliance increasingly difficult. Wednesday marked the first anniversary of Hollande's inauguration. The Socialist leader defeated Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2012 election by promising economic growth and job creation without substantially altering the French way of life. He also promised that France and Germany would lead the European Union as equals, and that French interests would be protected in the context of a growing German domination of the European political and economic agenda. But as Hollande works to find middle ground in France's domestic and European agendas, the country is sinking into a new recession.

France's geography has historically influenced its foreign policy on two fronts. France is located in the northern European plain, which has historically forced Paris to pursue a balance of power with Germany (a country against which it fought three wars between 1870 and 1945) and the United Kingdom (France's ally in the two world wars). But France is also a Mediterranean country, something that has traditionally linked France to political developments in Spain, Italy and the Levant. 

Since the end of World War II, France's main strategic dilemma has been to find a balance between the preservation of its national sovereignty and the need to consolidate its alliance with Germany. Former French President Charles de Gaulle was a clear example of this, because he sought to consolidate the Franco-German axis in the context of the recently created European Economic Community while preserving France's autonomy. France's nuclear weapons program — whose objective was to reduce France's dependency on military protection by the United States — is an example of De Gaulle's pursuit of an independent foreign policy. Subsequent to de Gaulle, France and Germany tightened their alliance, which led to the creation of the European Union and the eurozone.

The European crisis is putting the balance between continental integration and national sovereignty at stake, because the French economy is stagnating and unemployment is on the rise. The first anniversary of Hollande's inauguration coincided with the announcement by France's national statistics agency that the French economy has sunk into recession. Unemployment reached 11.2 percent in the first quarter of the year, the highest rate since the mid 1990s. This has substantially reduced Hollande's popularity; the president's approval ratings have fallen below 30 percent in recent weeks. 

France's economic performance conspicuously contrasts Germany's. The German economy is slowing, but Berlin has managed to avoid a recession. Most important, Germany's unemployment — which was higher than France's before the crisis — is now less than half that of France. The Elysee's failure to apply structural reforms partially explains this economic divergence with Germany, but the creation of the eurozone has also contributed to France's lack of competitiveness and growing trade imbalances. 

Hollande's victory raised hope in countries such as Italy and Spain that Paris would defend the interests of Mediterranean Europe. Under French pressure, the European Union has relaxed its requirements of fiscal discipline to countries in the periphery, and the promise of intervention by the European Central Bank has brought borrowing costs down for some eurozone members. However, these changes are perceived in Europe as German concessions, rather than French diplomatic victories.

Frontal opposition with Germany would only accelerate the process of European political fragmentation, and Paris is in no condition to replace Berlin as the leading voice in Europe. In the coming months, Hollande will probably continue looking for harmony at a time of growing divergence between the interests of France and Germany. He will have to do so while dealing with a slowing economy and growing dissatisfaction at home with the process of European integration. 

Paris and Berlin agree that reforms need to be made to mitigate the EU, and European treaties will likely be reformed during Hollande's presidency. France will probably push Germany for the generation of a system of fiscal transference among EU members, the creation of some European scheme of debt mutualization (in the form of Eurobonds or some similar bond issued jointly by eurozone members) and the tolerance of higher inflation rates. Germany will probably accept some of these proposals, but Berlin will require tighter control over the EU member's power to spend and borrow, something that would substantially weaken France's sovereignty. 

Sarkozy managed to preserve the Franco-German alliance with relative ease. The crisis was in its early stages and no significant concessions of sovereignty had to be made, so France and Germany's agendas were temporarily put aside. But as the crisis deepens, compromises between France and Germany are becoming politically costly for Hollande.