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Social `upheaval' looms as French Cabinet returns

"There is a real risk of explosion: we are in a pre-revolutionary situation."

Gerard Mermet, political analyst

France could face its worst period of social unrest for a decade, analysts and commentators warned, as Dominique de Villepin's center-right government returned yesterday from its summer break.

With gasoline prices soaring, economic growth hesitant, trade unions furious, public confidence in the country and its political leaders at rock-bottom and a string of unpopular reforms still lying ahead, conditions are ripe for what one analyst, Gerard Mermet, called "genuine social upheaval."

The first Cabinet meeting of the new political year will be chaired by President Jacques Chirac, whose approval ratings have barely budged since the cataclysm of France's "no" vote to the EU constitution in May, when he became the most unpopular French head of state ever.

De Villepin, the prime minister, saw his personal popularity surge by an encouraging 11 points to 48 percent last month as voters learned that a man widely dismissed as an incomprehensible aristocrat could, when he chose, speak, listen and act like an ordinary mortal.

It is those acts, however, that are most likely to fuel September's looming protest. Just before the summer recess earlier this month the prime minister pushed through, by decree, a series of measures aimed at slashing France's stubborn 10 percent-plus unemployment rate, which the government sees as its top priority.

The most important part of the package is the "new employee contract" or CNE, which will allow companies to fire new staff without justification at any time within their first two years.

Existing redundancy procedures are so complex and expensive that they often discourage many companies from taking on new staff at all.

The CNE has been hailed by businessmen as introducing some much-needed flexibility into France's over-regulated labor market. The country's powerful public sector unions are fiercely opposed, seeing it as the first step towards a liberalized "Anglo-Saxon" labor market with zero job security.

"We may not have the 2112 Olympic games, but I can assure you there is going to be plenty of sport in France starting in September," Bernard Thibault, secretary general of the Communist-led CGT union federation, warned earlier this month.

Union organizers are planning this year's "rentree chaude," traditionally France's main strike season as the nation returns to work after the summer holidays, as a gradual build-up of protest rather than a sudden call to arms.

"We are all aware of the need for a collective response across all classes and sectors," said Jean-Christophe le Duigou of the CGT.

"It is also essential that the response be meticulously organized. That all takes time," he said.

The first mass day of action will be in late September and will mobilise more than 1 million French workers, he said -- although the first teachers' strike is scheduled for next week.

Such protests can take dramatic turns in France: a massive public campaign against some relatively mild economic reforms in 1995 brought the country to a standstill for several weeks, leading ultimately to the downfall of the previous center-right government headed by the then prime minister, Alain Juppe.

In addition to the jobs problem, de Villepin -- who marks 100 days in office on Sept. 8, by which time, he has pledged, he will have "restored the nation's confidence" -- also faces widespread discontent at falling spending power (exacerbated by rising fuel prices), as well as stiff opposition to planned education, civil service and health reforms.

With economic growth standing at just 0.1 percent in the second quarter, and Paris under strong pressure from Brussels to bring its deficit back to below the EU's 3 percent ceiling, the prime minister will also find it almost impossible to finalize a state budget for next year without big cuts in public spending -- each provoking further unrest.

Le Monde warned in a recent editorial that the "rentree" will de Villepin's "first real test."

Mermet was more pessimistic: "Things will radicalize," he said.

"There is a real risk of explosion: we are in a pre-revolutionary situation."
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