MR ALAIN JUPPE knows how to take abuse. So when an old woman on the campaign trail told him she would prefer to listen to his, mentor, President Jacques Chirac, the French Prime Minister was quick on the uptake: "Instead of God, Madame, you have before you one of his saints."
They prize such repartee at the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA), where Mr Juppe learned to be a politician, but the public loathe his haughty irony. He doesn't have the joie de vivre that the French look for in their politicians, and his clumsiness has made him the most unpopular prime minister in French history. He is viewed as a cold and arrogant technocrat with a computer-like brain.
Yet despite his unpopularity, President Chirac asked Mr Juppe to head the centre-right's parliamentary election campaign. If the opposition left wins the May 25th and June 1st poll, Mr Juppe will lose his job to the Socialist leader, Mr Lionel Jospin. If the right wins, all bets are open. Mr Philippe Seguin, the outgoing speaker of parliament, is favoured to replace him, but Mr Chirac might yet keep his chief lieutenant of more than two decades the president has long resisted pressure to sack Mr Juppe, whom he has called le meilleur d'entre nous ("the best among us").
All the same, Mr Juppe's campaign has been disastrous. The public remember the symbolic gaffes - Mr Juppe reaching into his pocket to give money to a beggar, but finding he had no change. His rallies have been half empty, and some candidates declined his offers to speak on their behalf. So the prime minister has decided to concentrate on radio, television and newspaper interviews for the rest of the campaign, in the hope of better conveying his message.
The message is far from scintillating - a rehash of the government reforms Mr Juppe tried to enact for the past two years. It is hard to inspire welfare-minded French voters with a drive for "less state, less taxes". His Socialist opponents say that Mr Juppe incarnates heartless economic liberalism in his very appearance, and it's true that his bald pate and well tailored suits make him look like a stock broker.
In 1993 Mr Juppe married a young, attractive journalist, but even the rosy image of the newly-weds failed to endear Mr Juppe to the public. In Entre nous (Between us), the book Mr Juppe wrote last winter in hopes of appearing more human, he described the euphoria of his first days in office, when his baby daughter was born and he was considered the ideal prime minister. "Today I beat all the records for unpopularity," he admitted. "Have I failed?. . Does it leave me indifferent? Surely not. Must I admit that it wounds me? Like all politicians, like all men of power... I need recognition, and even affection."
Mr Juppe diagnosed what ails his country: "The French. . . feel threatened in their jobs, in their security, in their morale, in their customs. For the first time in two centuries, they think their children will live worse than they do. I believe that deep down inside, they know that our State, our economy and our system of social protection must be reformed. But no one will accept the consequences.
Mr Juppe's legacy remains the November 1995 "Juppe Plan" to overhaul the French social security, retirement and medical systems. His plan prompted social unrest that forced the government to retreat. For the present campaign, Mr Juppe announced a 40-day plan to spark off Mr Chirac's nouvel elan. Proposals for a five-year budget, lower taxes and draft legislation on everything from flexible working hours to the protection of children provoked colossal ennui.
Mr Juppe is often called Mr Chirac's lightening rod, and if the president keeps him on after the election it will be because Mr Juppe has shown he is not afraid to be hated. The president is committed to meeting the Maastricht criteria, and that will mean more austerity - a word the right has not dared whisper during the campaign. "Somebody has to do the dirty work," Mr Juppe wrote in Entre nous. "Hence my present status as scapegoat. I accept it."
