When the former prime minister Dominique de Villepin warned that there was a risk of revolution in France, it was not just because he wanted to make life difficult for his arch-rival Nicolas Sarkozy. It was also because social unrest is genuinely on the rise. Yesterday thousands of protesters took to the streets - not as many as the millions who protested in March, but this was a respectable turnout, considering that it was the third national protest at the government's handling of the global downturn in four months. They are not just marching: universities have ground to a halt for three months over attempts to rewrite the terms of employment contracts for lecturers. There has been a wave of "bossnappings", where chief executives arriving at plants to announce layoffs found themselves barred from leaving. There have been commando-style "picnics" in supermarkets, where people feast from shelves shouting "we will not pay for your crisis". The protests are local and apparently spontaneous. Union officials find themselves not so much leading the action as trying to head it off. In five out of seven cases, bossnapping was used against foreign-owned companies (Sony, Caterpillar, 3M) which are reputed to be more cavalier about laying off workers than their French counterparts. Nor are strikes mere stunts. They represent a widespread feeling that if the president can pay billions to preserve the boss class, and their shares, he should do the same to protect workers. Popular outrage at the banking bailout may be similiar around the world, but it finds different forms of expression. Barack Obama may have told AIG bosses that the White House was the only thing standing between them and the pitchforks. But in France the feeling is that the pitchforks are not just metaphorical. International comparisons are deceptive, but on paper there is no glaring reason why the outrage in France should be so much more acute. The public deficit is high, but little more than half of Britain's. Nor is unemployment so much higher, although it is climbing faster. France entered the global turndown later than Britain, and fewer banks were in trouble. Social protection, although under attack, is still substantially more generous than in Britain. The big picture, however, masks structural problems. France has one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in the developed world, with about one quarter of its 2.5 million unemployed under the age of 25. The truth is that no government in Europe has the luxury of treating French, German or Greek social unrest as a spectator sport. The breakdown in the social compact, the gulf between promise and delivery, should concern everyone.France: May Day warning
Saturday, 2 May 2009
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