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Chirac Prepares To Jump
French president Jacques Chirac has announced that he will shortly address the nation, as the crisis surrounding the CPE employment contract worsens.
UPDATE: The top French constitutional body has just ruled the CPE is legal. This means Chirac will have to sign it - or force his PM Dominique de Villepin to enter intro further negotiations.
The FT (online only for subscribers) reports that the president's aides are hinting strongly that Chirac will sign the the law passing the CPE, despite street protests from over 1 million students and union members on Tuesday. Heartened perhaps by newspaper reports that over 80 percent of French citizens oppose the law, union leaders are calling for yet another day of action next week, which threatens to bring France to a standstill once more.
The unions, however, have asked Chirac to consider withdrawing the law.
Doubtless the president has considered this position. Vetoing the CPE, however, would undermine his favourite and chosen successor Dominique de Villepin, perhaps fatally. It would also cap a week in which UMP government leaders, led by Villepin's rival Nicolas Sarkozy, have made their worries about the CPE increasingly clear - Villepin might have no choice but to give into union demands that he resign if his boss ditches the unpopular contract.
If Chirac signs, though, the UMP might rally around its prime minister. As the FT says, approving the CPE could send the "social crisis spiralling out of control." But sources close to the president insist that this time, he won't "surrender to the street."
Chirac has a history of crumbling in the face of street protests, but nearing the end of his presidential term and with few prospects of re-election next May, he might decide that he has little to lose in a brawl with the unions.
What sort of "social clash" would we expect, then? The unions certainly have the people on the street, and their iron grip on public services such as transport and utilities could make life very difficult indeed for the government. However, union leaders too must think strategically, and balance their obvious glee in making France ungovernable with the risk that the public could quickly tire of striking antics, particularly if general strikes become weekly events.
The unions have the media on their side. Footage of attractive protesting students sets the French soul aglow, something broadcasters and newspapers have been quick to exploit. However, while the disturbing sight of France's media marching in step is useful for short-term campaigns, a protest lasting longer might force dissenting voices into the open.
The huge 80-odd percent of people who claim to oppose the CPE could be a distortion created by media coverage too. The press has made supporting the CPE something beyond the pale - citizens are embarrassed to admit they dislike union power.
In a perfectly unscientific vox pop poll in Paris yesterday, your correspondent could not find one supporter of the protests among the 15 he asked. All claimed France had to change and that the unions and students were bringing the country down; all wished that the unions would stop striking; their opinion on the CPE ranged from "Don't care" to "give it a try" to "hopefully it is only the start and civil servants will be forced to do some work for a living for once" (granted, this was from a small businessman awaiting planning legislation).
De Villepin is obviously hoping that voices like this become more representative, especially if the CPE works. Should unemployment continue to fall (it fell by 10,000 last month), the PM will be able to claim justification - and if he swings public opinion behind him, he could feasibly claim to be the first public servant to have faced down the street for decades.
Of course, the media will be waiting to pounce on the first youngsters to be sacked after their 2-year CPE contract expires sometime in 2008, but by then Villepin could be president - and whoever succeeds him as prime minister will have to deal with that problem.
EURSOC ought to note that it might not come to this: A French constitutional court will decide today if the CPE is constitutional. Socialist opponents of the bill say it discriminates against under 26s by subjecting them to a contract which does not apply to others.
Few legal experts expect the court to declare the bill unconstitutional, but if it surprises everyone and rules in favour of the socialists, conspiracists will wonder if Chirac himself didn't lean on the court to give his PM a face-saving way out of the crisis. He gets to talk tough (via his aides), save his PM and stave off a social crisis that could wreck his final year in power. It will be a hard one for Chirac to resist - even if it would simply postpone France's crisis for another few years.
