A government assailed

Date: 14/06/03

Anti-reform demonstrations are becoming more violent

IT PROMISES to be a long, hot summer. As France's prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, was busy on June 10th presenting his case for reforming his country's demographically challenged pensions system, police were fighting to stop a small but violent mob in Paris's Place de la Concorde from reaching the parliament building just across the river Seine. On the same day, fierce clashes and strikes spattered the country. The next day another mob tried to bash its way into the Paris headquarters of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).

France, it seems, is in the grip of a PETITE ReVOLUTION. Cool-headed Mr Raffarin seems determined not to retreat, at least on pensions. He thinks the protest is a paroxysm of rage that merely reveals the underlying weakness of his opponents.

That infuriates France's unions. The residue of the hard left is also angry. It is doing all it can to be obstructive. The parliament's 22 Communists (out of 577 deputies in all) have laid down an impressive 7,000 amendments to the proposed pensions laws. The Socialists, of whom there are 141, managed a more modest 2,900. The debate could drag on for weeks. Too bad, Mr Raffarin thinks, so long as the law is passed. He talks of a need for “demographic lucidity”.

Strikes - many of them by workers who will not be affected by the planned pension reforms - and demonstrations have paralysed the country. In some cities uncollected rubbish is piling up in stinking heaps. The country's important pre-university Baccalaureat exam began on June 12th amid threats that the invigilators would refuse to turn up. Something has to give. So far, it seems unlikely to be Mr Raffarin.

Anti-reform demonstrations in France are becoming more violent.

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