As the French continue their protests against projected pension reforms, it would appear that revolution is in the blood, writes Lara Marlowe in Paris
It was almost 9 p.m. last Tuesday and the first part of Cosi Fan Tutte was drawing to a close, when 60 angry demonstrators burst into the red velvet, white stucco and gilt interior of Charles Garnier's Second Empire Palais de l'Opera in Paris, built in the reign of Napoleon III. The 19th-century autocrat would have understood what has occurred in France since early May: "It is very difficult in France to make reforms," he complained to a British politician. "We make revolutions in France, not reforms."
The would-be revolutionaries who stormed the Paris Opera on June 10th had started at the Bastille. They marched to the Pont de la Concorde, where they began hurling paving-stones at riot police. Driven away from the National Assembly by tear-gas, they fell back after a few hours and a few drinks, on a less protected symbol of the French establishment. Staff managed to evacuate the audience of 1,800 out the back of the building, as police arrived to arrest the demonstrators. The performance was cancelled, and the Opera promised to reimburse tickets.
The mouvement social had turned ugly on June 5th, when shrinking demonstrations made it clear that mobilisation against Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's pension reforms (he plans to lengthen the working life of French public sector workers before they can claim their pensions) was decreasing. On that day, demonstrators set alight tyres in front of the business management group MEDEF's La Rochelle office. The building caught fire. Employees fled to the roof and were evacuated by firemen.
The government said this and similar acts showed that trade unionists were growing desperate, and they may have been right. In the biggest test of the showdown last Thursday, France's striking teachers abandoned their threat to sabotage the baccalauréat exams, after the government formally requisitioned them. There were nonetheless a half-dozen incidents. In Avignon, for example, more than 200 teachers chained shut the gates of the Lycée Mistral, in a failed attempt to prevent students sitting their exams.
But by Thursday afternoon, President Jacques Chirac was praising the teachers for "having known to disassociate themselves from isolated and unacceptable actions". Forgotten were the weeks of teachers' strikes when working parents scrambled to find childminders; forgotten was the spectacle of educators burning, trampling and spitting on a book written by their minister, philosopher Luc Ferry. As usual, teachers and transport workers will doubtless be paid for the days they walked out.
The French already work less than most of their neighbours. The OECD ranks France 23rd of 29 member countries in terms of professional activity. This week, I heard a teacher threaten to forego his summer holiday so that he could continue striking.
The politicians do not behave much better. Around the time the opera-lovers were fleeing out of the back door, some disgruntled Frenchman cut the electricity while Raffarin read a speech in the Paris suburb of Asnières. Raffarin continued, accusing the opposition Socialists of "preferring their party to their country". Socialist leaders demanded an apology and threatened to boycott the National Assembly. With his hand on his heart, Raffarin said he hadn't meant to give offence, and the incident was closed.
All of this is enough to make one question the maturity of the French body politic. In his usual shrewd way, Chirac stayed above the pensions fray until it became clear this week that the government was winning. He then seized the occasion to pose as the great conciliator. In a speech on Thursday, he claimed there were "neither victors nor vanquished" in the pensions dispute.
With a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, Chirac's UMP party will pass the pension law this summer. Hardline trade unionists have not given up yet; they promise another day of transport chaos on June 19th. But the government wants to maintain the momentum. Chirac promises to reform the healthcare system, which will accumulate €16 billion in debt by the end of this year. The health minister, Jean-François Mattei, has made a previously taboo suggestion: that the French consider private health insurance. The gas and electricity companies and post office are next on Raffarin's reform list.
A month ago, Parisians prayed that Raffarin would cave in to the unions quickly, to save them from weeks of transport misery. To their amazement, he now appears to be winning his gamble to be the French Margaret Thatcher, but at enormous cost.
French society feels bitterly divided. The transport ministry says industrial action has cost the state-owned railway €260 million this year. Air France has suffered €40 million in losses from the strikes, the Paris Metro €5 million. There must be a more efficient way to reform the French economy.