French unions. Sound and fury, signifying little

Some labour protests are more spectacular than effective

NOW and again, French reality can surpass the wildest imaginings of fiction. The nation has just lived through ten days that felt like a series of scenes from a poorly-made B-movie: a hijacked ferry, a helicopter rescue mission, abseiling commandos, balaclava-clad rioters, and at least 1m people taking to the streets to chant angry slogans and let off steam. The common theme in all these events is union-led protest - against privatisation, the lack of job security and low wages. But behind the theatrics, measuring the real ability of the trade unions to influence events is somewhat more difficult.

Two separate protests underlie the recent wave of eye-catching dramas. One is over the future of SNCM, a loss-making state ferry fleet which links the island of Corsica with the French mainland. In mid-September, when it emerged that the government planned to sell the whole company, unions reacted angrily. They blockaded ports, briefly kidnapped the company's boss, seized a ferry and then set sail from Marseilles. In a ten-minute raid, commandos retook the ferry. Despite a government promise to keep 25% of the firm, protests and blockades spread to Corsica's ports, such as Ajaccio and Bastia: thousands of bewildered travellers were stranded, and riot police were called in to get the ships going.

This week's one-day strike was a separate fixture, which had been planned a long time in advance. All France's unions, backed by the opposition Socialists, voiced a whole series of grievances - over new labour laws, privatisation and the erosion of living standards. Between 450,000 and 1m people took to the streets in scores of towns across the country; public transport was disrupted; some schools closed. Bernard Thibault, head of the Communist-backed General Labour Confederation (CGT), the biggest union, boasted afterwards that the day of discontent had been “undoubtedly a great success”.

It depends, of course, on how you define success. This sort of drama can certainly grab headlines and dent France's international mage - but does it get results? On SNCM, it is true the government has already given some significant ground. It has raised to 34% the share that it suggests should be retained by the state and employees combined. This joint holding would amount to a blocking minority share, so the government's concession is more than a token one.

While the authorities have threatened to let the company sink if no deal is done, nobody believes they would actually dare to do so. The government's emollient behaviour can partly be explained by fears of stirring up local nationalism as well as labour unrest. Anything to do with Corsica, with its history of fiery and occasionally violent separatism, is always treated as a special case. The latest troubles have stirred the island's passions, blurring the line between anti-French and anti-privatisation protests. In view of the Corsican factor, yielding over SNCM does not necessarily imply that the government will go soft on other fronts.

The one-day national strike was a clearer test of the government's will-power. Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, said he “heard” the protesters' message. Yet he has no plan to alter the new job contract, which enables firms employing fewer than 20 people to shed workers more easily over the first two years of their existence. This is a boon to small businesses, but it was an enormous gripe for this week's demonstrators, who are dismayed by an increasing liberalisation of the labour market, and a sense that the old days of legally-enforced job protection may be going for good.

Apart from help with the cost of long car journeys to work, no immediate moves are planned to ease the cost of living. Nor has Mr de Villepin followed up on one particularly daft, populist proposal that he floated recently. He said he might try to force Hewlett-Packard, an American computer company, to pay back subsidies that it had supposedly received from the state. His gesture was a sop to trade unionists, who - to judge by the slogans heard this week - are particularly incensed by redundancies at that American firm. But on closer inspection, it has turned out the computer firm received no help from the government in Paris, and the matter has been allowed to drop quietly.

Moreover, aside from SNCM, the government is pressing ahead with its privatisation plans. It sold a stake in Gaz de France, the gas utility, earlier this year; it is privatising motorways; and it plans a share offer for part of EDF, the state-owned electricity company.

Judging by results achieved rather than noise created, France's unions are waning. Over the past two years, protests and strikes did not manage to prevent a state pension reform, and a mini-reform of public health-insurance. This failure reflects government tactics (dividing the unions), new rules (like docking pay for public-sector strikes) and success in negotiations (which have secured a basic public transport service during strikes). If unions still have a loud voice, it is not because of their mass membership - only 10% of French workers are unionised, against 13% in America, according to figures from the OECD - but because they co-manage unemployment and health-insurance funds.

So can the government afford to dismiss the latest demonstrations as an autumn ritual? Not without incurring some political risk. In 1995, a centre-right government led by Alain Juppe was fatally wounded by paralysing national strikes. And charges of political deafness can sting. But perhaps the more important point is that with unions on the back foot, there could be more room for reform in France than pusillanimous politicians think.