to mend the fracture sociale (the “socialrnrift”) which had spht French societyrninto all too fortunate “haves” and all toornnumerous “have-nots.” hideed, so pronouncedrnwas the stress Chirac placed onrnthis point that before the election campaignrnwas over, many observers werernbeginning to wonder if the right-wingrn”bulldozer” hadn’t been mysteriouslyrnmetamorphosed into a left-wing chameleon.rnThere is, of course, nothing particularlyrnnew or specifically French aboutrnthis kind of “change.” In 19th-centuryrnBritain, it was a great conservative, BenjaminrnDisraeli, who deplored the dire lotrnof British workingmen and -women overrnand against the hardhearted Gladstoniansrnof the “Manchester School,” just asrnin Germany it was Bismarck, hardly suspectrnas a radical, who introduced the firstrncomprehensive program of social securitvrnto be tried out in Europe. Closer to thernpresent, it was Valery Ciscard d’Estaing, arntechnocratic “centrist,” who in Francernwas the first to launch a generous progranrrnof financial aid to the unemployed,rndunngthel970’s.rnThe problem now facing France, andrnvirtually every other country in the Westrntoday, IS how to keep a charitably inspiredrnpolicy aimed at helping the joblessrnfrom becoming an encouragement tornindolence. The danger-point is reachedrnwhen the amount of money generouslyrnextended to the jobless to keep themrnfrom starving approaches the amountsrnpaid out to young apprentice workersrnwho have to toil eight hours a dayrnor more to keep body and soul together.rnIn France, this danger-point has beenrnreached and even passed for hundreds ofrnthousands, and perhaps even for one millionrnof its more than three million officiallvrnregistered unemployed.rnTwo ears ago, Christian Jelen, anrnenterprising journalist who had donerna lot of on-the-spot research on livingrnconditions in the suburbs of Lyon andrnother French cities, came out with an importantrnbook {La famille, secret de I’integration)rnin which he showed how, inrncommunities of foreign origin, thosernamong the young who succeeded best inrnobtaining jobs were those who had beenrnbrought up in close-knit families.rnYoungsters of Vietnamese and Chinesernorigin, where family ties are cry strong,rntended to do very well in their studiesrnand in later life, whereas the children ofrnNorth African, and even more of CentralrnAfrican origin, often did poorly and werernmore likely to become “dropouts” andrnexclus. As has been happening in thernUnited States ever since Lyndon Johnsonrnintroduced the maternal-aid benefits ofrnhis “Great Society,” the allocationsrngranted in France to all mothers have notrnonly encouraged the development of excessivelyrnlarge families, but in some casesrneven made it possible for polygamistsrnto maintain a household with two orrnmore wives. Jelen was simply reportingrnwhat he had discovered; but because hisrnbook contained such unpalatable truths,rnit was boycotted as “racist” by French TVrnand radio stations, and by almost everyrnimportant newspaper in the countrv.rnFor his “crime” in boldly voicing unpalatablerntruths, France’s new FinancernMinister, Alain Madelin, lost his job towardrnthe end of Jacques Chirac’s firstrn100 days. A Young Turk who had alreadyrnbeen trying (mostly in vain) to encouragernsmall entrepreneurs as the Ministerrnfor Industries in Edouard Bahadur’srnpussy-footing cabinet, Madelin felt thatrnthe time had come for Jacques Chirac’srnnew, “reformist” government to grasp atrnleast one conspicuous nettle. At present,rnthe five million French men and womenrnwho work for the French state—thev includernone million schoolteachers andrnprofessors—have been enjoying total jobrnsecurity without any loss of numbers andrnan actual increase in salaries, with the additionalrnbenefit of being able to retire onrna comfortable pension after 37 years ofrnwork, whereas persons employed withoutrnjob security bv private enterprises have tornwork 40 years to obtain full retirementrnpensions, which in many cases are inferior.rn(Forty percent of the annual budgetrngoes to paying the five million emploveesrnof the “public sector,” and one result hasrnbeen that budget deficits, over the fivernyears of 1990-1994, reached a level of sixrnpercent in France, compared to 2.5 percentrnin Germany.) It was time, Madelinrndeclared in a radio interview, to put anrnend to such unjustifiable discrepancies.rnMadelin’s “provocative” remarks immediatelyrnbrought the roof down on hisrnhead. France’s new, “dynamic” primernminister, Alain Juppe, who was beginningrnto act and to sound more and morernlike his undynamic predecessor, EdouardrnBalladur, demanded and obtainedrnMadelin’s resignation. Clearly embarrassed.rnPresident Chirac explained,rnfirst in a magazine and then in a televisionrninterview, that “one doesn’t reformrnby opposing one category of Frenchmenrnagainst another… the active against therninactive, wage-earners against [state]rnfunctionaries, the young against thernold…” etc.rnThis mild reprimand could not disguisernthe bitter truth: that in its first majorrnconfrontation with France’s laborrnunions, the Chirac locomotive had notrnonly lost steam but had gone suddenlyrninto reverse. A highly resistible force hadrnmet a seemingly immovable object—rna for once-united labor-union front, ofrnwhich the most iirrportant componentrntoday is not the once-powerful, communist-rncontrolled CGT (ConfederationrnGenerale du Travail) but its anticommunistrnrival, Force Ouvriere.rnLaunched, along with the MarshallrnPlan, in the late I940’s during thernstormiest years of the Cold War, ForcernOuvriere was gradually built up andrndeveloped as a solidly anticommunistrntrade-union syndicat by Leon Jouhauxrnand, from 1963 on, by a thoughtful,rnlevel-headed moderate named AndrernBergeron. Their ad’isors and supportersrnon the other side of the Atlantic werernthe staunchly anticommunist GeorgernMeany and his intellectual mentor, JavrnLovestone, and, in Paris, the AFL-CIO’srninfluential representative, Irving Brown.rnBut four years ago, an aging Bergeronrnwas forced to resign his post, and intornhis shoes stepped a bogus “moderate”rnnamed Marc Blondcl, who seems to haverndecided that the best way to maintainrnForce Ouvriere’& present lead is to bernutterly intransigent in defending workers’rn”rights” (to higher pay, etc.) and thernprime irrover in the formation of a unitedrnlabor front—against an allegedlv “liberal”rngovernment. As an astute observerrnof the present social scene and its backstagernmachinations recently said to me:rn”Every time in this country that a ‘commonrnfront’ is created—as happened inrnthe middle 1930’s with the Front Populairernand in the immediate postwar periodrnof 1945-1947—the results have beenrncatastrophic.”rnIrving Brown, like George Meanv, isrndead, and the new generation of advisorsrnto whom Mare Blondel is lending an increasinglyrnattentive car are, of all thingsrn. . . Trotskyists! Internationally, the ColdrnWar may be over, but in France (as inrnother countries) the Marxist virus is stillrnvery much alive.rnA longtime resident of Paris, Curtis Gaternis the author of a biography of AndrernMalraux, recently published in France,rnGreat Britain, and Brazil.rnDECEMBER 1995/41rnrnrn