Juppé reprieve gives Chirac a breathing space

Date: 12/10/1995

By Michael Mann

SOME of the pressure was taken off the embattled government of French President Jacques Chirac this week when the Paris public prosecutor announced that Prime Minister Alain Juppé should not face prosecution over alleged housing irregularities.

This came just a day after a national strike in protest at a proposed wage freeze had brought much of France to a halt.

In a recommendation to the justice ministry, prosecutor Bruno Cotte found that Juppé had indeed committed an offence by leasing an apartment from the City of Paris in 1990 while he was responsible for overseeing rents in the city.

However, Cotte recommended that the case be closed on condition that the prime minister gave a written undertaking to move out of his apartment by the end of the year. Juppé confirmed last Friday that he would move house.

The prosecutor's decision yesterday (11 October) will come as welcome news to Chirac, whose popularity has dipped alarmingly since he replaced François Mitterrand almost five months ago.

A poll in the daily Le Parisien on 10 October found that Chirac's approval rating had slumped by 15&percent; to 37&percent;, with 55&percent; of voters saying they had a bad opinion of the president. Support for Juppé had fallen by 20 points to 32&percent;.

Despite yesterday's decision, Juppé's administration remains in severe trouble. Tuesday's strike brought together the five main federations of France's union movement and two public sector unions, and polls suggested that 57&percent; of the population supported the action.

If problems persist for the government, Chirac may eventually be forced to nominate a replacement for Juppé. He would then risk reigniting the heated French debate on European integration. Chirac appointed Juppé partly to please those both inside and outside France who support a more closely-knit EU. Philippe Séguin, the other favourite for the job, was deemed too Euro-sceptic, having led the “No to Maastricht” campaign during the 1992 referendum.

If Juppé is forced out, most observers feel Chirac would choose Justice Minister Jacques Toubon to replace him, both for national reasons and to avoid destroying relations with EU partners. Toubon, like most of Chirac's current ministers, takes a middle-of-the-road line, neither wildly pro-European nor a sceptic.

Now some of the pressure is off Juppé, Chirac may be able to keep Séguin in the wings in case his government has to make a shift to the right following the legislative elections in 1998. By then, EU policies as defined in next year's IGC will probably be well underway.

Last Friday (6 October), the franc lost one per cent of its value in a single day's trading, mainly because of nervousness over Juppé's tenure in office and disappointment over next year's budget proposals. Many public employees are concerned that their traditional job security could be threatened when the government opens up several public utilities to competition.