protect social welfare payments – all without
increasing taxes – were too good to be true. And
so it turned out. But it was his prime minister,
Alain Juppé, who had to take responsibility for
unpopular measures. The strong franc continued
to hit exports. Unemployment remained too
high. The changes essential to make industry
more competitive were blocked by massive trade
union protests in the streets of Paris. Only small
reforms were accomplished and the French
people tended to blame Maastricht and its strict
criteria for convergence to achieve the currency
union for the mess France was in.
In foreign relations Chirac revived Gaullist tra-
ditions only in some respects. The resumption of
nuclear testing in the South Pacific earned France
worldwide protest and was a spectacular demon-
stration of independence. Chirac also followed a
more robust independent policy in the Middle
East and elsewhere. Crucially, towards Europe
Chirac did not follow in the general’s footsteps.
He clearly supported efforts to fulfil the Maastricht
agenda for closer European union and France
rejoined the military command structure of NATO
in May 1996. However, he was ready to follow
independent policies in the Middle East and defy
the US by indicating his readiness to resume trade
with Iran. Whether Chirac really enhanced
France’s standing and role in the world remains
questionable. What was quite clear was that he
gave in to the massive protests of French workers
and state employees, and so was unable to deliver
his domestic agenda.
France is far more prosperous than statistics
would imply. The French people enjoy the high-
est pensions and one of the most generous welfare
systems in the world. But the new economic con-
ditions of the global market mean that change is
now imperative. However, formidable resistance is
encountered when any one group is hit by
attempted reforms, whether they are middle-class
civil servants, lorry drivers or farmers; the French,
traditionally unwilling to defer to state authority,
do not hesitate to take direct physical action
against a government in Paris, which consequently
finds it difficult to enforce unpopular legislation.
At the general election in June 1997 the
Gaullists were punished for having failed to
deliver on President Chirac’s promises of lower
taxes and unemployment. Gaullist supporters
were reduced from 477 to 256 seats and Lionel
Jospin and his allies gained 320 in the National
Assembly. It was now the turn of the socialists to
fulfil promises of 700,000 new jobs, higher
minimum wages and a shorter working week.
Jospin declared that the hardship involved in
meeting the Maastricht criteria was too great a
price to pay for monetary union. Chirac, com-
mitted to Maastricht now had to ‘cohabit’ with a
Socialist prime minister of a government com-
posed of Socialists and communists. A clash of
policies seemed inevitable. It failed to materialise.
Once in power, Jospin allayed fears that France
had turned its back on the close partnership with
Germany and gave assurances that he was still
determined to meet the criteria.
France, like Germany has taken a long hard
look at its past. The passage of time has made it
possible to explode the Gaullist myth that the real
France was embodied in the wartime Free French
movement rather than in the Vichy regime. The
truth is that it was not the previously unknown
junior general, de Gaulle, but the old Marshal
Pétain, the victor of Verdun, who was regarded
by the majority of French people as their saviour.
Vichy France had implemented Germany’s racial
policies with indecent compliance, arresting and
sending Jews to their deaths at the behest of the
Nazis. Of the 130,000 foreign Jews who had
sought refuge in France 52,000 were deported,
and of the 200,000 French Jews, 24,000 were
sent east. Less than 2,000 returned. In 1997 the
French government and the Church for the first
time expressed a public mea culpa. However,
many brave French people also hid Jews; the
majority, at least 230,000, were saved.
France was once more governed, from 1997 to
2002, by Chirac, a conservative Gaullist president,
and Jospin a Socialist prime minister. The French
electorate quite liked ‘cohabitation’ that would
result in a centrist position promising no radical
change as president and prime minister checked
each other. That was the theory. Prime Minister
Jospin was no ideologue and was effective in a
quiet way. He took a pragmatic approach to
politics, perhaps surprising when his flirtation with
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