06 February,2009 11:41 AM IST | | Agencies
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said that he is taxed by the pressures of his job and might not seek re-election in 2012.
In an interview on French television, Sarkozy said, "Because my job is very difficult. It needs a lot of energy, a lot of strength to do it and I have put all my strength into doing it as well as possible."
"There are still three-and-a-half years," he added. "I give no undertaking, in one direction or the other. You run for a second term if you have the strength to chase another dream and people have confidence in you. It would be shocking if I had been able to make such an important decision less than half-way into my first term."
Sarkozy also promised to lead France out of the economic slump while avoiding the mistakes of Britain. stuck to his argument that salvation in France lay in his u20ac26 billion programme of investment in state infrastructure and not in boosting consumer spending with tax cuts, as in Britain.
He also refused to follow US President Barack Obama in setting a ceiling for the salaries of bankers whose firms had been bailed out by the government.
