By Gavin Bowd The Socialists under were reacting against the sleaze and neo-liberalism of the late Mitterrand years; the Communists were ridding themselves of the Soviet legacy; while the Greens were proposing an alternative which combined environmental awareness and social justice. The government of the plural Left was buoyed up by, and accountable to, active social movements around issues of unemployment, the public sector and immigrants' rights which had organised strikes and spectacular demonstrations. A genuinely left-of-centre way of government, therefore, seemed possible. One year on, the French government rivals Blair's in its popularity ratings. Recent commemorations of May '68, the Communist Manifesto and the abolition of slavery have shown the persistent energy of French radicalism. So is Paris where the Left's heart really is? It is widely assumed that the Blair and Jospin administrations are as different as the gauges of France and Britain's painfully contrasting railway systems. When Blair preached labour flexibility to the French National Assembly, Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement's only reaction was, "His French is very good." Britain's presidency of the EU was denounced in the pages of the Communist daily L'Humanité as "ultra-liberal". However, there are affinities between Paris and London which should not be overlooked. In Paris in June, at a conference attended by Peter Mandelson, the secretary of the Socialist Party, François Hollande, spoke of the "analogies between our actions and those of Mr Blair: youth employment, the struggle against exclusion, the need to give more attention to problems of law and order, and the priority given to education." During last week's visit to London, praised Blair's "positive" attitude to monetary union and concurred in his rather banal belief in a "work-oriented" rather than an "aid-dependent" society. A first similarity in policy is that of fiscal prudence. It is true that the French government, on taking office, levied a tax on corporations and increased both the minimum wage and welfare benefits. Public spending has increased in real terms. However, the minister of finance, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has since kept a firm lid on public spending with the euro in mind. Indeed, thanks to the Treaty of Maastricht and the Amsterdam Stability Pact, Strauss-Kahn is working within a strait-jacket that would delight Britain's own Calvinist Chancellor. The Jospin government has benefited from economic growth which came too late to save its right-wing predecessor Alain Juppé: it has enabled the convergence criteria to be fulfilled while keeping the socialists' coalition partners more or less happy. Yet, that public spending is still under pressure was demonstrated recently by the strikes which united teachers and pupils in deprived Paris suburbs in the demand for more resources for their dilapidated schools and neighbourhoods. Jospin and Blair have both devised schemes for youth employment. 'Welfare to work' finds an echo in the 'emplois-jeunes' programme, where the government will subsidise jobs-with-training for under-25s. There are similarities in other areas too: while Paris has liberalised certain parts of its immigration laws, it has not shied away from repressive measures in other areas that are already familiar in Britain. Both Blair and Jospin are engaged in cross-party attempts to deal with troublesome areas of the nation, in the French case Corsica and New Caledonia. Both are engaged in constitutional reform, Blair over devolution, Jospin in order to implement greater parity for women. There are, however, significant differences remaining, which may give hope to those on the Left that their distinctive politics has not been simply consigned to the past. One major difference is the plural Left's hostility, in the name of the "French exception", to flexible working practices. It is opposed to the growth of short-term and part-time contracts and the erosion of rights in the work-place. Instead, the government intends to fight unemployment through its ambitious plan to reduce the working week to 35 hours, without loss of pay, by the end of its period of office in 2002. This radical project, at first violently opposed by right-wing parties and the employers' confederation, is now being implemented through step-by-step negotiations. The government is also lukewarm on privatisation. Companies such as Air France and France Télécom have been opened up to private capital, and the defence industry will be privatised in the interests of creating a giant European presence in the international market. However, the government still constantly reaffirms its commitment to the public service. What is interesting, inspiring and also worrying about the plural Left is its conflictual dynamic. If New Labour is run by spin doctors, and its left wing destined for a series of heroic yet inevitable defeats, the French arithmetic dictates that a majority can only be constituted through a coalition of Socialists, Communists, eurosceptic socialists, Radicals and Greens. The last year has revealed considerable tensions between these partners: the Socialists, the only coalition member explicitly in favour of the euro, face opposition from their partners who are pushing for a more "social" Europe over the Amsterdam Treaty. Greens and Communists have meanwhile been at loggerheads on environmental issues: the Green minister of the environment, Dominique Voynet, had the Superphénix nuclear reactor cancelled, a project championed by the Communists in the name of French technical prowess. The Communist minister of transport, Jean-Claude Gayssot, has also opposed, in the name of employment, the many objections raised to various road- and rail-building projects. Outside the realm of government, the coalition has been kept on its toes by the existence of a challenge from the Far Left. The Communists, whose parliamentary group is openly split on various issues, are haunted by the charge of "social-democratic drift" and have been alarmed by the electoral rise of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire and the mysterious Lutte Ouvrière, which retains links with Peru's Shining Path. These Trotskyist organisations denounce the government's "demagogy" and its "superficial" policies on immigration, unemployment and Europe. Their opposition is made more credible by its convergence with arguments advanced by intellectuals grouped around the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. The Far Left won five per cent of the vote in the regional elections in March this year. If their lists were to combine, as now seems likely, in time for next year's European elections, they have the power to punish the government for any perceived failure to deliver on promises. Linked to this political opposition is the activism of grass-roots associations, fighting on such issues as unemployment, education and immigration. The strain this has already led to the spectacle, unimaginable in Blair's Britain, of government ministers joining in the illegal occupation of public buildings. The state of the opposition parties also gives the Left cause for optimism. Ever since Chirac's inept decision to dissolve the National Assembly led to its disastrous rout, the traditional Right has been split on policy and strategy. A chasm separates those Gaullists who are wedded to euroscepticism and a socially-minded attitude to la fracture sociale, from those tendencies which favour a robust liberalism and joining the euro. The Right is also divided on the attitude to adopt towards Le Pen's Front National (FN), which is now taking 15 per cent in the polls: some, a minority, are tempted by electoral alliances, and already at local levels a certain amount of "cohabitation" is being practised. The FN itself has a strategic problem: as the most unpopular party in France, it has, under the present electoral system, little chance of gaining real power. The question of extending the hand of friendship to a Right which Le Pen has always vilified is now causing major conflict within the party's ranks. It seems very unlikely that a party which remains wedded to racism and nostalgic for Vichy can engineer for itself the kind of political rehabilitation enjoyed by Italy's MSI, now Allianza Nazionale. There are, however, a number of obstacles on the horizon for the government of the plural Left. The junior coalition partners, ever wary of Socialist "hegemony", have rejected proposals by the latter to introduce an element of "first-past-the-post" into European and regional elections, ostensibly to exclude the FN, but also intended, it is suspected, to rid the Socialists of their troublesome partners. The debate on next year's budget has seen the Communists opposing attempts by the social security minister, Martine Aubry, daughter of Jacques Delors, to put a cap on health insurance payouts. In the interests of redistribution, the Communists have also demanded -- unsuccessfully -- a hike in the wealth tax and taxation on financial speculation. These issues are connected to the broader question of imposing euro-rigour. If there is no referendum on the single currency, the Communists, Greens and Citizens' Movement will have to take stock of what for them will represent a policy defeat. And if the Communists find themselves unable to influence government policy in other domains, they will be sorely tempted to return to opposition, to avoid being outflanked in their natural constituency by the Far Left. The budget for 1999, announced last week, illustrates the balancing-act forced on the government. Public spending is to increase in real terms and there are measures to reduce further France's budget deficit. In the interests of job creation, a tax unpopular with small businesses has been phased out. The left-wing partners are pleased with a small increase in the wealth tax, as well as first steps towards eco-minded fiscal policy, with punitive taxes on diesel and other pollutants. In the longer term, the government will face tough challenges. Its success ultimately depends on finding work for France's unemployed, who still number three million. At current growth rates, France would have to wait for 2005 to see unemployment drop below the 10 per cent mark. The success of the 35-hour week is, therefore, crucial. Another shock that lies in wait is demographic: by 2005, pension payments to retired public sector workers will be double what they were in 1995. And the psephological patterns are chastening, too: since 1981, when Mitterrand swept to power, every outgoing government has been defeated at the polls. Before long, the honey in this lune de miel may turn sour and sticky. But, if the government of the plural Left has its contradictions, running the risks both of imploding and of adopting too readily the pensée unique now dominating Europe, it does have the potential to make a refreshing difference. There is something tediously retro about New Labour's embrace of "modernisation". Scenes from the land of "new realism" are reminiscent of continental social-democracy's fascination with power in the '80s: the cult of sharp suits, fast cars, media management and business opportunity, working-class vowels clipped to please the establishment. In France, that particular "project" crashed and burned in 1993. It is in the light of this failure that we should understand the problematic at the heart of the Jospin government. In Paris, the priorities are distinctively left-wing: jobs, social justice and the environment, with an ambitious attempt to change the way people work. Perhaps this will amount to little more than a green-tinged social democracy. But the success of such a government, if it does succeed, in the fourth largest economic power on earth, should not be dismissed lightly.
