EVER since President François Hollande was elected last May, things have not gone right for him. He promised to kick-start growth and create jobs, yet the economy has stalled, factories keep closing and unemployment is over 10%. His scheme to impose a 75% top income-tax rate on millionaires has been ruled unconstitutional by the highest court. Up to 1m protesters have challenged his plans to legalise gay adoption and marriage. As his credibility has drooped, so have his poll numbers, to record lows. Yet in the past week, Mr Hollande has silenced even his critics by revealing an unexpected streak of audacity.

First came the decision on January 11th to order French air strikes on an Islamist incursion from northern Mali into government-held territory. With no warning, Mr Hollande sent French fighter jets, based in France and nearby Chad, as well as attack helicopters, to strike a rebel column advancing towards Bamako, the capital. After days of air strikes, in which one French helicopter pilot was killed, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French defence minister, said that the Islamist groups, which have ties to al-Qaeda, had been partially pushed back. By mid-week, Mr Hollande announced that he was increasing to 2,500 the number of French troops in Mali, as part of “Operation Serval” (see article).

The French have long worried that the Sahel is becoming “Afrighanistan”—a breeding ground for terrorists, made deadlier by modern weapons seized in Libya after the war there. France drafted a UN Security Council resolution authorising a regional African force to retake rebel-held territory, which was unanimously passed last October. There are eight French hostages in the region, and groups in the north of Mali have named France as a terrorist target. On January 16th at least one more Frenchman seemed to be among dozens of hostages seized in Algeria.

Yet Mr Hollande has also made clear that France will not play its old role of regional gendarme, stepping in to prop up African rulers. He promised Mali logistical support, but no boots on the ground. This week’s operation, decided out of the urgent fear that Bamako itself might fall to the jihadists, turns that vow on its head, for the first time testing his mettle as a war leader in a high-stakes operation.

For the moment, he enjoys both international support and cross-party backing at home; 63% of respondents told one poll that they approved. It lends authority to a politician with no foreign-policy experience and a reputation for prevarication. Yet it is bold precisely because it is perilous. Laurent Fabius, foreign minister, said the intervention would be for a matter of “weeks”. But Mr Hollande’s ambitions include “restoring Mali’s territorial integrity”, and “stopping terrorist aggression”. In theory, the job should swiftly pass to African forces. In practice, this is likely to be a long drawn-out process for the French.

As if one African military operation were not bold enough, on January 11th Mr Hollande ordered a commando raid to rescue a French intelligence agent held hostage in Somalia since 2009. A night-time operation, involving five helicopters and 50 commandos based on a warship off the coast, ended in disaster. Two French commandos died, and the hostage-takers say they have killed the agent. The two interventions have little in common except a political willingness to take risks. And, as the Algerian crisis shows, risks there are. France has raised its level of terror alert.

Even if the Mali operation works, it may not help lift Mr Hollande’s poll ratings. Foreign policy rarely boosts domestic standing, as his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, found with the war in Libya. More important is what happens to jobs and the economy. Yet on that front Mr Hollande has also just scored a success, albeit a modest one.

On January 11th, after three months of talks at the government’s request, unions and bosses reached a surprise agreement that will ease some of the country’s labour-market rigidities. The deal fell far short of the “historic compromise” that Mr Hollande had promised. Plenty of problems, such as the tangle of regulations that govern compulsory union consultation in the workplace, or the 35-hour working week, were not even up for negotiation. And some bits of the deal, such as a requirement for firms to provide top-up health coverage for employees, or higher taxes on very short-term work contracts, will actually add new costs for employers.

Nonetheless, the deal was “better than expected”, says Pierre Cahuc, a labour-market economist who was sceptical about its prospects. For the first time, employers will be able to reduce hours and wages for up to two years in a downturn, in exchange for guaranteeing jobs; and such agreements, which will require majority union support, will prevail over any sector-wide rules. The deal also reduces, from five to two years, the deadline for an employee to contest a redundancy in a labour court, although the procedure itself remains in judicial hands.

Equally important is the evidence that it is possible in France to reach agreement on reforms through negotiation, without prompting mass protests. The deal was not signed by two unions, including the biggest (and communist-backed), the Confédération Générale du Travail, which considers it too employer-friendly. This could cause trouble when it is written into law. But such hostile voices have not yet called for street protests.

Whether the new agreement will have much immediate effect, however, is another matter. Laurence Boone, chief European economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, who calls the deal a “step in the right direction”, says that it is unlikely to help create jobs in the short run. Extra flexibility over working time and pay may in time help curb redundancies. But “it doesn’t provide an incentive to hire”, she argues. In short, Mr Hollande may for the first time look like a decisive leader who has started to make difficult choices. But it still promises to be a hard year ahead, at home—and now abroad.