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French law unlikely to satisfy the opposition

French President Jacques Chirac's suggested compromise on his government's contested youth jobs law is a pitch for the middle ground of public opinion, but with more mass protests planned, it is far from clear if he can pull it off.

In his televised address to the nation on Friday evening, the 73-year-old president tried to reconcile two competing impulses: loyalty to his friend and ally Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin on the one hand, and on the other, his deep-rooted aversion to hostile movements on the street.

The result is a confusing hotchpotch of concession and resolve. To begin with, the unpopular First Employment Contract (CPE) for under 26-year-olds is signed into law.

But then -- in what must rank as a legislative first -- the government is immediately told to draw up a new law to alter the original contract's most contested provisions.

Face is saved because the CPE is not formally abrogated, but concessions are held out to the students and unions who have mounted such a successful campaign of opposition: the contract's trial period is reduced to one year from two, and employers will now have to present some kind of explanation for dismissal.

Divide and rule

The objective is clear: to separate die-hard opponents of the CPE from what the government hopes is a broad mass of ordinary voters, people who do not particularly like the contract but may accept it as inevitable now that a compromise deal has been offered.

It is not a totally rash calculation. Polls conducted last week showed that if two-thirds of the population were against the CPE, around half of these people would accept it if it was modified. And now it's been modified.

Also, the vast majority of French people have been appalled at the scenes of violence that are now routine after demonstrations -- on Friday night a Paris mob ransacked the offices of a ruling party member of parliament -- and so may feel it is time to take a step back from the brink.

The problem with this optimistic scenario for Chirac and Villepin is that power struggles with the street also depend on momentum -- and today momentum remains very clearly on the side of the CPE's opponents.

In immediately rejecting Chirac's offer of compromise, union leaders and left-wing politicians were signaling they believe more can still be won.

They want outright abrogation of the CPE law and have calculated that with sustained pressure that goal can yet be achieved.

The next stage in the president's elaborate escape route from one of the worst crises in his political career is for the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) to draw up the new legislation that will go before parliament and eventually supersede the CPE.

Brinkmanship

Significantly the job is in the hands not of Villepin -- who has survived but is badly damaged by the crisis -- but of UMP deputies, men and women loyal to party chief Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister and Villepin's arch-rival ahead of next year's presidential race.

Sarkozy and his supporters have made clear from the start their exasperation at Villepin's go-it-alone handling of the CPE debacle, which they fear has dealt a terrible blow to the right's chances next year.

And they have no great love of the law itself, preferring a general, rather than an age-specific, overhaul of French labor law.

With the government already giving ground and so many senior figures lukewarm about the whole project, unions and students feel they are entitled to go for broke on this issue.

They will keep pushing, so more surprises could yet be in store.
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