Protests a venerable tradition of French politics

Protests a venerable tradition of French politics

By Nelson Graves

PARIS (Reuter): France's students have once again proved an age-old rule that to get your way with the government, a little street violence does no harm.

"It's a French tradition to take to the streets," said historian Henri Amouroux. "The French are a turbulent people."

A month of demonstrations capped by frenzied rioting by several hundred young "wreckers" last Thursday forced Prime Minister Edouard Balladur to beat an embarrassing retreat and strike down a law cutting wages for entry-level young workers.

He replaced the law with a subsidy to firms hiring young people -- loosening the government's purse to protect wages. It was not the first time the conservative prime minister had backtracked during his first year in power.

When Air France workers blocked runways and highways last October and battled riot police, he scrapped an austerity plan designed to plug the airline's hemorrhaging finances.

When teachers, students and the opposition Left took to the streets in January against a law increasing state aid to private schools, Balladur backed down.

When fishermen livid over rock-bottom prices and cut-rate imports rampaged through Paris' wholesale market in February, the premier offered not one, but two rescue packages.

Now he has climbed down on the youth wage law -- only days after a minister compared it to the bloody World War I battle of Verdun where allied troops were slaughtered holding the line against Germany.

Balladur's habit of offering concessions to protesters has prompted charges he is enfeebled by memories of May 1968, when students and trade unions overran streets, nearly bringing down then president Charles de Gaulle.

At the time Balladur was cutting his political teeth as a senior aide to prime minister Georges Pompidou.

But political scientists say street protests have played a critical role in the country's political system since the 18th century French Revolution and assumed an importance that no leader can dismiss, except at his peril.

"Over time everyone demonstrates," said historian Olivier Fillieule. "People consider it normal."

The street has been a forum for political expression since revolutionaries stampeded through Paris in 1789 and erected barricades in 1830 and 1848.

Ironically, France's democratic ideal from the Revolution of a mutually beneficial relationship between the individual citizen and the state has helped to fuel mass protests, Fillieule said.

That is because unlike the United States where a federalist tradition has encouraged the proliferation of power centers and strong interest groups, France has an underdeveloped system of lobbies and a highly centralized state.

When tensions build and there is no political escape valve, people protest.

"Demonstrations represent a short-circuit in the political system," Fillieule said. "People protest when it is no longer possible to make oneself heard except by taking to the street."

France's constitution, which gives the government extraordinary power to control the parliamentary agenda, makes it difficult for the opposition to put its stamp on legislation. Nine out of 10 French laws originate from the government.

With the current center-right coalition holding a crushing four-fifths majority in the National Assembly (lower house), the frustration is all the more acute for the opposition.

The decline of trade unions and the discrediting of the Socialist Party after a scandal-plagued stretch in power have deprived a segment of the population of channels of expression.

"Whereas countries in northern Europe...have created systems of cooperation, arbitrage, consultations and permanent debates, France remains prodigiously archaic in this domain," political scientist Alain Duhamel wrote in the daily Liberation.

The government is haunted by memories of the death of a young demonstrator beaten by police during a student protest in 1986, an incident which contributed to the conservatives' defeat at the polls in 1988.

"For years governments of all stripes have operated by radar," Fillieule said. Referring to presidential elections next year, he said: "As elections approach, everyone knows the government will yield if protests heat up."

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