France’s unpopular government: Protest days

Dislike of the government could overshadow the EU vote in May

WHEN Jacques Chirac decided to have a referendum on the European Union constitution, there was a risk that he would be testing his popularity as president instead. This week exposed the danger starkly. Days after he chose May 29th for the vote, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets, in three days of protests and a one-day strike (just as the Olympic committee dropped by to evaluate Paris's bid for the games in 2012). Can Mr Chirac detach disgruntlement with the government from the referendum?

The protesters have a broad swathe of grievances, some specific, others more general. Lyceens (upper-school pupils) want the withdrawal of an “elitist” reform bill. Many school pupils just want more teachers and money for classrooms. Researchers and scientists want more money too. Postmen, railwaymen, teachers and civil servants want better pay, more jobs and to keep the 35-hour week: in short, to “raise pay, not hours”, as one slogan put it. There is widespread frustration over low pay rises, particularly given recent big jumps in profits at such companies as Total and Renault. Ironically, dwindling purchasing power is partly a result of pay freezes imposed by employers in return for the 35-hour week.

Discontent has been fed by disillusion with the governing elite. The resignation of Herve Gaymard as finance minister, over a vast apartment he had rented at taxpayers' expense, has worsened the disconnect between the political class and the electorate. That Mr Gaymard could not grasp his mistake only confirmed that impression. Confidence in Mr Chirac slid to 36% in March, down from 41% in January, according to a poll by TNS-Sofres. Confidence in his prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, stands at just 28%.

Given this political atmosphere, the government is keen, ahead of May 29th, to avoid anything that even hints at confrontation. Already, the education minister, Franois Fillon, has caved in to demands of school pupils, agreeing not to modify the baccalaureat school-leaving exam, as he had originally proposed. Mr Raffarin has firmly rejected the European Commission's services directive, a measure seen in France as evidence of the takeover of Europe by Anglo-Saxon free-marketeers.

Will their despondency affect voters' judgment of the EU constitution? So far, polls suggest that they will say yes, but by an ever-shrinking margin: 58%, says a March poll by Ifop, down from 61% in February. Indeed, this erosion, which mirrors that ahead of the narrow 1992 vote in favour of the Maastricht treaty, explains Mr Chirac's decision to hold the referendum earlier than he had planned.

That the French are still favourable at all hints at a certain readiness to see past an unpopular government. Moreover, of the two-fifths who are undecided, twice as many are inclined towards a yes as towards a no, according to Ifop. That means that a higher turnout is likely to favour a yes. The ruling UMP party, led by Nicolas Sarkozy, voted at the weekend by an overwhelming 90% to support the constitution. And the opposition Socialists, led by Franois Hollande, have launched their own yes campaign, with billboards that make use of such cheap slogans as “Yes to a strong Europe facing America” .

The Socialists' difficulty in finding the right voice for their campaign encapsulates a broader problem. As Mr Hollande concedes, “the temptation exists to punish Chirac and thereby to punish Europe. That is what we have to avoid.” Hence his posters remind the French to say yes “along with all of Europe's socialists”. In other words, he is trying to show that it is possible to be both against the government and for the constitution.

But confusion remains. For one thing, widespread hostility to Turkey's entry into the EU is muddling voters: should they reject the constitution, even though it says nothing about Turkey? For another, the group of rejectionists on the left is growing, starting with Laurent Fabius, the Socialists' number two, who led a breakaway camp against the constitution last year. Although he lost an internal vote on the matter, he has not kept quiet since. “I'm not going to conduct a no campaign in terms of stump speeches,” Mr Fabius says, “but I can't hide the fact that I will vote no.” The CGT, the country's biggest union, has also decided to campaign against, as has Attac, an anti-globalisation lobby.

Some on the left mischievously accuse Mr Hollande of being Mr Chirac's campaign director. He got a personal taste last weekend of how hard it is to get the message right. Out on a march in defence of public services, he had hoped once again to show that there was no contradiction in criticising the government and supporting the EU constitution. But anti-constitution campaigners hijacked the event, and pelted him with snowballs.

Dislike of the government could overshadow the French Referendum on the European Constitution, due to take place on 29 May 2005.

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