The French Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, yesterday offered concessions to unemployed campaigners but reaffirmed that his government's priority was to create jobs rather than to spend on welfare.
Interviewed on French television, Mr Jospin pledged that minimum welfare payments would be indexed to the cost of living and that retroactive payments would be made, but he did not give figures.
The prime minister, appearing combative and in control, said a special effort would be made for the long-term unemployed whose situation was the most difficult.
Mr Jospin repeated earlier assertions that the government would not change course and would "seek the strongest growth while reacting to emergency situations". He also stressed: "Everything is not possible straightaway." He said that legislation to be debated in the National Assembly in March to help the poor would have the necessary teeth to be effective.
He said that industry should also play its part. "The effort of solidarity must also be made by companies. We cannot say on the one hand that it is industry which creates jobs and on the other that it is the government which must look after the unemployed." He added that "the government is with the unemployed, is working for the unemployed."
Interviewed by TV presenter Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, Mr Jospin said he knew he was "just passing through. The palaces of the nation are of no importance, I will come out of them. What I want in the interval is simply to move my country forward."
Earlier, anti-AIDS protesters gave Mr Jospin an early wake-up call with whistles and foghorns after he rejected a significant rise in social benefits.
Some 40 protesters gathered outside his Paris home at 6.30 a.m. to demand a rise in state aid for handicapped people, the Act Up group said.
"We take the liberty of disturbing the intimacy of our ministers since they make short shrift of our lives," Act Up said in a statement.
It said AIDS sufferers could not live on the current 3,470-franc (£412) monthly allowance.