LOST ILLUSIONS

By Ray Fleming FRANCE'S prime minister, Dominque de Villepin, must be wishing that he could wind back the clock by three years. In early 2003 he was his country's foreign minister, speaking passionately in the UN Security Council against the road to war in Iraq to which Britain and the United States were increasingly committed. On one occasion his eloquence was so impressive that almost everyone in the Security Council chamber broke out in applause. It was improper but it was magnificent! Now, prime minister of his country, M. de Villepin cannot even persuade the protesting students' leaders to sit down with him to discuss their objections to the new youth employment law he has introduced. The so-called CPE legislation is tougher than it first seemed since it affects staff up to the age of 26 who can be dismissed in the first two years of their contract without being given a reason. A law which might have seemed reasonable if it applied to people just out of school and with no work record behind them seems much less so when someone starting a job in their mid-20s could be affected by it. Whether M. de Villepin can find a compromise to stop the escalating protests seems doubtful. His subtle diplomatic skills are not what is needed when facing tough trade union negotiators and committed students. There is a subtext to these happenings. When President Chirac appointed de Villepin as prime minister he was in effect recommending him to the French people as his successor as president next year in preference to the brash Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior minister and leader of the ruling UMP party. Now M. Sarkozy is taking his chance. At a speech at the weekend he said that in his 25-year political career he had never seen France more tense and tormented than it is today: “After 20 years of mass unemployment, 15 years of mediocre economic growth and seven changes of government since 1981, France has lost its illusions.” His speech was a remarkable attempt to distance himself from the government of which he is a senior member. There are calls for President Chirac to intervene but he is seen by many as the architect of the present difficulties.