Pressure on Jospin as unemployed vow to continue protests

The "gang of four" associations of French unemployed, which occupied 75 dole offices over Christmas and the New Year, yesterday said their protest will continue. They were unimpressed by the promise by the Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, on Wednesday night to inflation-index payments retroactively for unemployed people whose benefits have run out. This measure will cost up to Ffr1 billion (£119 million) - a fraction of the Ffr70 billion (£8.33 billion) it would take to satisfy the demands of the jobless groups.

The activists plan a march next Tuesday to coincide with the parliamentary debate on the 35-hour working week, a measure they support. Riot police have expelled them from the dole offices, but they continue unarmed "commando raids", like the brief sit-in yesterday in the headquarters of Mr Jospin's Socialist Party. "We are going to shift our targets towards business management and companies," Mr Richard Dethyre, the president of APEIS (Association for Employment, Information and Solidarity for the Jobless) - one of the "gang of four" - told The Irish Times.

A petition by French film-makers and intellectuals published by Le Monde yesterday proclaimed "the unemployed are demonstrating for all of us" and called on the public "to support them morally and financially". Opinion polls show that seven out of 10 French people sympathise with the jobless movement. "At last, people have put a face on the statistics that show that six million people run out of money for food by midmonth," Mr Dethyre said.

The French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, INSEE, estimates that 11 per cent of the French population live in poverty. Mr Jospin stated twice this week that France cannot afford to increase welfare payments by Ffr70 billion, as demanded by the jobless groups.

Mr Dethyre responded simply:

"French shareholders received Ffr1,000 billion (£119 billion) in dividends last year; we must redistribute wealth."

The demonstrators hope to keep up pressure on the government until a draft law on social exclusion is presented in the spring. The protest could fizzle out before then - or it could become violent. "This movement risks taking a turn that no one wishes, least of all the jobless," warned Mr Noel Mamere, an ecologist member of parliament.