THE FRENCH premier and his ruling Socialist Party have been facing growing opposition to it's plans for the unemployed and on the working week.
Across the country job centres were occupied by unemployed people, in a campaign initiated by forces involved in last year's Euromarches demonstration in Amsterdam in the run up to Christmas From targeting job centres the movement progressed to occupying prominent tourist sites -including for example the glass pyramid at the Louvre.
Clashes broke out as Jospin ordered riot police to break up the occupations, resulting in representatives of students and low-paid workers committing themselves to defend the movement in 77 of France's 95 regions.
Increasingly workers and students have joined the unemployed in their protests to demand an increase in benefit levels.
A month after Blair's election in Britain, Lionel Jospin was elected as French Prime Minister at the head of a coalition of the Socialist Party, Communist Party and the Greens. The Socialist Party was kicked out of office in the '80s after moving rapidly to the right.
Following the strike wave in France towards the end of 1995, the SP adopted much more leftwing rhetoric, and specifically stated that it would deal with unemployment, a reduction of the working week and so on as part of its election manifesto.
The Prime Minister has simply stated that he is on the left and "understands" the unemployed, but that there isn't the money to pay for a benefits increase. In France the richest I per cent of the population own the equivalent of £200 billion, and the previous government had made a tax concession of £2.5 billion to the wealthiest. There is a great deal of anger over Jospin's refusal to even consider taxing the rich to pay for these demands.
At the same time, whilst the government is intending to introduce a 35 hour working week, there are no measures to reduce overtime worked, or to apply the measures immediately.
Without combining the 35 week with any other measures it is widely felt that this would simply be used to undermine workers' rights.
Obviously all this is taking place in the context of meeting the Maastricht convergence criteria. Jospin has placed meeting this criteria above any considerations of reducing unemployment and so On.
Jospin's attacks on the unemployed are increasingly helping to develop a mass unemployed movement that is building support amongst low-paid workers and students.
Now the movement looks like spreading beyond France's borders. The Co-ordination Centre for Trade Unionised Unemployed in Germany announced plans to follow the French example by occupying unemployment on February 5, followed by monthly protests in the run up the elections in September.