End to French crisis

2006-04-10 14:30

Paris - A fiercely-contested youth jobs law will be replaced by another measure, French president Jacques Chirac announced on Monday.

The embattled president's announcement is almost certainly to put an end to one of the most bitter social crises in modern French history.

Millions of people took part in protest marches, hundreds of secondary schools and most French universities were disrupted, and the functioning of the government was severely hampered as the country's traditionally powerful trade unions joined with student unions to kill the reform.

The crisis certainly caused yet another black eye to France's image abroad.

Demonstrations against the First Job Contract (CPE) were marred by violent clashes, with hundreds injured and more than 2 000 people taken into custody.

The dispute over the law, which lasted nearly three months, also made French leaders look helpless and inept.

Villepin made a mistake

If French prime minister Dominique de Villepin had intended to weaken the power of trade unions by acting unilaterally and pushing the measure through the country's parliament without consulting union leaders, he made the mistake of his life.

The unions have come out of the crisis stronger than ever, while Villepin and Chirac have been left with almost no political capital or credibility.

In a weekend survey published in the French daily Le Parisien, 86% of respondents said Villepin was weakened by the crisis over the CPE.

About 85% said the same about Chirac.

The French president intervened in the clashes between Villepin - who proposed the new law - and unions on March 31.

Chirac said he would sign the CPE into law, but immediately suspend it for amendments.

Four days later more than one million people took to the streets throughout France to denounce the president and demand the repeal of the CPE.

Villepin refused to accept deal

According to the French daily Le Monde, ministers in charge of social affairs and employment had worked out a deal to replace the CPE by Friday.

The replacement was very much like the one proposed on Monday, based on a law already on the books.

The newspaper reported that Villepin refused to accept the deal at the time.

Monday's announcement represented a bitter defeat for the prime minister, who finally admitted that "conditions were not ripe to have the CPE implemented".

French analysts say the winners of the protests are the opposition Socialists, whose leaders took part in protest marches and filled air waves and newspapers with thundering condemnations of the government and the CPE.

Unqualified winners of the affair are the French trade unions, say analysts.

- SAPA