His first major cinema role – in Being President, a behind-the-scenes documentary about life at the Elysée – was described as frustratingly limited and had less than brilliant box-office takings, reports The Guardian.
Now the Socialist French president, François Hollande, stands accused of trying to kill off French arthouse cinema, as Paris's film industry tears itself apart in a vicious war over new regulations on film crews' pay and conditions.
The French government has spent months loudly defending its "cultural exception" in transatlantic trade talks, arguing that the special state subsidies and quotas that protect France's cherished home-grown film industry must remain in place.
Meanwhile, a culture spat at home has been raising serious questions about the workings and survival of French film.
This autumn, after protracted wrangling and years of debate, Hollande's government will enforce new labour and salary rights for French film crews, from set designers and camera teams to directors of photography.
Workers and their unions have complained that loose rules dating from the 1950s are not respected, with many crew members taking pay cuts of up to 50% on small, low-budget films, or working nights and overtime without proper pay. The government signed a pact last month with big producer-distributors and several trade unions which will ensure a minimum wage, overtime pay and special pay for night shoots.
But independent producers, who account for around 90% of French output, have risen up in rebellion. Backed by well-known film-makers such as Luc Besson and François Ozon, they have urged a rethink – warning that the new deal as it stands would be "disastrous" and a "death warrant" for low-budget arthouse films. Risk-taking, quirky auteur films that have helped shape France's reputation for independent cinema would have to be shot abroad or would not be made at all because the new wages would be unaffordable, independent producers argued.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.