FRANCE: When France's new prime minister went on television last night to tell the country how seriously he takes his "mission" to fight unemployment, Dominique de Villepin did not make a single concrete proposal.
"We must listen to the message of the French on the evening of May 29th," Mr de Villepin said, referring to the rejection of the EU constitution that led to his appointment on Tuesday. "It was a message of disquiet before the situation in Europe, globalisation, the situation in France, unemployment, outsourcing . . ." Mr de Villepin said he would address the "disquiet and impatience" of the French "through action and results".
An opinion poll by Le Figaro shows that 92 per cent of the French will judge the Villepin government by its success in lowering France's 10.1 per cent unemployment rate.
"We have not tried everything. Unemployment is not an inevitability," Mr de Villepin said. "The battle for employment will be the priority of this government. I shall lead it personally."
Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, France's best-known television presenter, asked the prime minister why, in 10 years under President Jacques Chirac, everything has not already been tried against unemployment. Mr de Villepin ignored the question, saying it was unacceptable that young people (20 per cent of whom are unemployed) find it so difficult to enter the job market, that men and women over 50 are unable to sell their experience.
"All this must lead us to lift obstacles and difficulties on the job market, whether on the side of the companies or on the side of job-seekers. We must show more daring, more imagination.
"I will propose a certain number of initiatives, in the spirit of social dialogue." Yesterday morning Mr de Villepin told the senate that he has given himself 100 days to succeed. The 100 Days is the title of the book he wrote about the end of Napoleon Bonaparte's rule.
Napoleon's 100 days ended badly, Mr Poivre d'Arvor noted. "Absolutely," Mr de Villepin agreed. "Conditions and circumstances are difficult, very difficult. We know it. This mobilisation is that of the whole government, of all French men and women." Ever the career diplomat, the prime minister fudged the debate on whether the French or "Anglo-Saxon" social and economic model would best serve France.
"I am a pragmatist, profoundly attached to the French model, which seeks to combine solidarity and freedom of initiative," he said, adding: "I shall have recourse to all experiments. Even if some take place elsewhere, I think we should try everything in this struggle against unemployment, in the respect of our social model."
Not since Georges Pompidou and Raymond Barre in the 1960s and 70s has France had a prime minister who has never stood for public office. "The president of the Republic has conferred a mission upon me," Mr de Villepin said. "It is to bring together all the energies. The legitimacy is in the mission." He and the new deputy prime minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who have clashed repeatedly over the past 10 years, would set aside their differences to work together "in the interest of France."
Asked why Mr Chirac broke his own rule of not allowing Mr Sarkozy to hold a government portfolio and the presidency of the UMP, Mr de Villepin again evaded the question. "We are in a difficult situation," he said. "The French are weary of personal quarrels."