FRANCE: As Villepin announced the 'death' of the CPE, its passing was a foregone conclusion, writes Lara Marlowe in Paris
All that fuss, for this? For two months, prime minister Dominique de Villepin's First Job Contract (CPE) plunged the country into crisis: five general strikes, millions of protesters on the streets, hundreds of police and demonstrators injured, not to mention images of rioting so vivid that Australia warned its citizens against travelling to France.
By the time a solemn, chastised Villepin walked into a gilded reception room in the Matignon Palace yesterday morning to announce the "death" of the CPE, its passing was a foregone conclusion. Only a handful of journalists even bothered to show up for the short declaration.
An hour earlier, the Élysée issued a statement saying that "the president, on a proposal from the prime minister, has decided to replace article 8 (of the law on equal opportunity) with a mechanism that will favour the professional placement of youths in difficulty". Replace. Not abrogate.
The Villepin-Chirac couple did their utmost to save face. "Abrogate" was the word bleated by protesters. "Replace" sounded gentler, but no one was fooled; it meant the same thing.
The credibility of president and prime minister is in tatters. Only two and a half weeks ago, Villepin insisted that the CPE could be neither suspended nor rescinded. On March 31st, Chirac said he was signing it into law, but reduced the two-year trial period to one, and required justification for firing; neither presidential adjustment survived.
Even in defeat, Villepin was loathe to admit he'd made a mistake. "I have the conviction that . . . only a better balance between more flexibility for businesses and more security for employees will enable us to break with joblessness." Though Villepin has hung on to his job, he and his mentor, President Chirac, are both lame ducks now.
A poll in Libération newspaper yesterday showed they have sunk to a record low 25 per cent approval rating. Chirac had made a partial recovery after France's rejection of the European constitutional treaty last summer, but no one expected much from the last year of his term.
For Villepin, the fall is much harder. The prime minister had surprised many by holding his own against the interior minister and president of the UMP party Nicolas Sarkozy, establishing himself as Sarkozy's rival for the right-wing presidential nomination next year. In December, Villepin attained a 50 per cent approval rating. Villepin said he wanted 2006 to be "a useful year". Two months have been lost to the CPE crisis, and the odds of Villepin carrying out serious reforms in the run-up to next year's presidential election are zero.
To the chagrin of Villepin and Chirac, the winner of the crisis is Sarkozy, who is now virtually certain to be the right's candidate to succeed Chirac. Sarkozy wisely distanced himself from the CPE in the early stages of the crisis, then insisted that the text be abandoned. The solution which Chirac and Villepin finally agreed to - "replacing" the youth job contract with incentives to employers to hire disadvantaged youths - was basically Sarkozy's idea. But to prevent "Sarko" from taking credit, Chirac forced him to postpone publication of an interview in Le Figaro twice.
The opposition socialist party and trade unions showed rare unity in their opposition to the CPE, and are revelling in their new-found power. The socialists have healed their split over the European constitution, but the contest for the presidential nomination could again divide them.
Positive lessons were learned: it will be a long time before a French government attempts to railroad the country into reform without prior consultations. In another Libération poll yesterday, 45 per cent attributed the difficulty of carrying out reforms to "the state of mind of the French".
The French were furious when CNN compared the Place de la République to Tienanmen Square, but they're interested in how the world sees them. And they're beginning to look seriously at what works better elsewhere.