An immediate dramatic change wrought by Chirac was the abolition of conscription , to give France more efficient and effective armed forces. The move provoked impassioned responses by the PCF and other left-wingers for whom conscription represented social levelling, the useful acquisition of skills and the revolutionary spirit expressed in the words of the national anthem - "Aux Armes, Citoyens &" Another early decision taken by President Chirac was to delay signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty until France had carried out a new series of nuclear tests in the South Pacific. This provoked almost universal condemnation (Britain and China being the exceptions), boycotts of French goods, attacks on French embassy buildings in Australia and New Zealand, plus all-out riots in Tahiti. Chirac and most of the French press gloried in Gallic isolation, with no qualms at the French navy capturing Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior II , almost ten years to the day after the bombing of Rainbow Warrior I in Auckland harbour by French secret service agents.

Chirac's new prime minister was Alain Juppé , a clever and clinical technocrat. It was down to him to square the circle of Chirac's election pledges of job creation, maintaining the value of pensions and welfare benefits, reducing the number of homeless, tax cuts, a continuing strong franc and a reduction in the budget deficit to stay on course for European monetary union. However, the Banque de France's control over interest rates and its commitment to the overvalued franc made Chirac's election promises to reduce unemployment difficult to fulfil. Not only was the French workforce terrified about job security and living standards, but French businesses were also up in arms at the cost of borrowing and the uncompetitiveness of their exports, leading to an epidemic of bankruptcies through the late 1990s. Even the indebted state-owned defence and electronics giant Thomson was put up for sale and its multimedia arm offered to the Korean company Daewoo for a symbolic 1F. People were scandalized and the deal was retracted, though Thomson was still sold, raising doubts about the government's commitment to retaining control over strategic industries.

In a television broadcast in October 1995, Chirac announced that rigorous economic measures to meet the criteria for European monetary union would have to take priority over social issues. Juppé then announced dramatic changes in social security provision and a "downsizing" of the state-owned railways, sparking off the strikes of November and December 1995. Students, teachers and nurses, workers in the transport, energy, post and telecommunications industries, bank clerks and civil servants took to the streets with the strong support of private-sector employees struggling to get to work. With five million people out over a period of 24 days, it was the strongest show of protest in France since May 1968. Though the slogan was Tous ensembles ("Everyone together"), and people were united in their opposition to arrogant, elitist politicians, their false election promises and the austerity measures emanating from the free-market philosophy, there were no united positive demands from the protesters, who ranged from working-class Front National supporters to middle-class Gaullists to Communist trade unionists.

The idea was propagated that Germany was responsible for imposing monetary union. As the government imposed increasingly severe austerity measures to meet the convergence criteria for a European single currency, views on Europe felt the wind of change. In the 1995 winter strikes, many protesters said that a repeat Maastricht referendum would show a clear majority against, and by 1996 even senior UDF politicians were beginning to question the commitment to monetary union at any price.

Juppé promised to clean up corruption and was almost immediately embroiled in a scandal involving his subsidized luxury flat in Paris. Accusations of cover-ups and perversion of the course of justice followed, punctuated by revelations of illegal funding of election campaigns, politicians taking bribes and dirty money changing hands during privatizations. In the past, politicians feathering their own nests never roused much public anger, but ordinary people, faced with job insecurity and falling living standards, were now becoming disgusted by the behaviour of the "elites". Even the normally obsequious right-wing press asked questions about the judiciary's independence, something Chirac had promised to uphold in his election manifesto. The consequences were twofold: a widening of the gulf between the governors and the governed, which was one of the key themes of the 1995 strikes; and a boost to the Front National 's popularity in the lead-up to the elections.

Municipal elections in June 1995 gave the Front National control of three towns, including the major port of Toulon. In 1996, a rare pact between Gaullists and Socialists prevented Jean-Pierre Stirbois from becoming the fourth FN mayor. The French constitution prevented FN town halls from fully carrying out their promised racial discrimination in housing, social services, etc, but local organizations, particularly those dealing with social integration, gay rights, AIDS support, feminism, contemporary art or the Jewish or Muslim communities - lost all their funding.

The Algerian bomb attacks , which rocked Paris in the mid-1990s, fuelled racism, added to the general feelings of insecurity, and diminished public confidence in the government as guardians of law and order. On the Right, Giscard used the potent word "invasion" and said that citizenship should be based on blood ties, not on place of birth. Chirac talked of the "noise and smell" of immigrants, and a UDF senator compared the four million immigrants in France to the German occupation. All of which boosted the confidence of Jean-Marie Le Pen and of the home affairs minister, Charles Pasqua , who reintroduced random identity checks, took away the automatic entitlement to French citizenship of those born in France and made it far harder for legal immigrants' families, asylum-seekers and students to enter France. Around 250,000 people living and working in France had their legal status removed. In March 1996 three hundred Malian immigrants, many of them failed asylum-seekers, sought refuge in a Paris church, and became known as the "sans-papiers" . On the eve of the International Day Against Racism, they were forcibly evicted by truncheon-wielding riot police with the complicity of the local bishop and the curé of the church. In August ten immigrants from African countries, who had all legally worked and paid taxes in France, went on hunger strike in another Paris church (this time with the priest's support) against their deportation . Similar protests took place in other times and cities. In each case police action was swift and brutal. Trade unions, intellectuals and human rights groups denounced the government, which responded by announcing that three planes a month would be chartered to expel illegal immigrants. The Loi Debré was proposed so that all visiting foreign nationals' arrival and departure dates be notified, a law based on one passed during the Vichy regime. A wave of protest marches ensued. An amended version was still passed in March 1997, which the entire majority right-wing assembly voted for, and the left-wing minority voted against.

The fate of immigrants and their French descendants was never so precarious. Fury and frustration at discrimination, assault, abuse and economic deprivation erupted into battles on the street. Several young blacks died at the hands of the police, while the right-wing media revelled in images of violent Arab youths. Two hundred French Muslims arrested on suspicion of involvement with the Algerian bomb attacks went on hunger strike to protest their innocence. Racist assaults became more common, and xenophobic opinions became accepted platitudes. In view of such attitudes it seems ironic that in 1996 France called for military intervention in Zaire - however, this was motivated less out of humanitarian concern than for fear that Americans were taking over a traditional French sphere of influence, with the concomitant threat of English gradually replacing French across Central Africa.

But the overriding opposition to the government , and to the political elite in general, came from the daily impact of economic policies on people's lives. Wages in former state-owned industries now in the hands of multinationals plummeted, deregulation led to deteriorating working conditions, and unemployment soared from 2.4 million in 1986 to 3.4 million (over 12 percent of the workforce) in 1996. Taking into account young people palmed off with training schemes and older people forced into early retirement, the true figure was close to five million. Six million people were living on or below the poverty line with at least another six million teetering on the edge of poverty . Furthermore, France experienced negative growth in 1996, taking it to the brink of a deflationary spiral. Some politicians, for the first time, called into question the strong franc policy, while the French public lost faith in any politician's ability to manage the economy and showed considerable sympathy for the strikes. Even the bully boys in Chirac and Juppé's own party, Séguin and Pasqua, started stirring trouble.

Amazingly, Juppé survived this "winter of discontent", abandoning some proposals and putting others on hold. A new tax to pay off the social security deficit was imposed, and cuts in the health service went ahead. More strikes and protests were held in 1996, but the three main trade unions (which in France are organized around political allegiance rather than occupation) returned to bickering amongst themselves, and Juppé was careful not to provoke public-sector workers.

In April 1997, Chirac unexpectedly dissolved the parliament and called early elections for May of that year, which had been due the following March. Even though Juppé announced his resignation whatever the outcome, Chirac spectacularly lost his gamble when the Socialists were elected. The Left was back in force with a strong majority, and the right-wing parties got their lowest score since 1958. There was a new cohabitation . Lionel Jospin took over as France's prime minister with election promises of job creation and economic growth. He immediately set about pursuing a strong pro-European policy despite members of the Communist party being in the coalition. Indeed, France, along with Germany and Spain, was one of the only countries to reach the European Monetary Union near-target deficit.

However, for all of the major parties the last few years have been characterized above all by scandal and popular dissaffection - encouraging popular apathy towards traditional institutions and increasing interest in alternative forms of political expresssion. The far-right Front National was the first to suffer, beginning in 1998, when Le Pen managed to alienate himself from the political scene by assaulting and punching a female Socialist candidate, who was running against his daughter in the April 1998 National Assembly elections, whilst the cameras were rolling. Consequently, he was temporarily stripped of his civic rights, including the ability to vote or run as a candidate in any election. In order to maintain his public influence and stature in the party, he had his wife stand in his place. This move sparked a revolt within the party. Bruno Mégret, Le Pen's lieutenant, who had seen his own chance to take the reins of the party when his master was banned from politics, was infuriated when Le Pen passed him over, and he set the wheels for a party revolt in motion. (Mégret, incidentally, was scarcely in a position to complain, given that he himself had nominated his own politically inexperienced wife to stand in the mayoral race of the town of Vitrolles in 1997 - a contest she won, thanks to the left-wing incumbent's own scandal-tainted record.) Mégret's machinations only served to divide the party, and with the municipal elections of April 1998, the extreme right suffered a number of reversals, including the loss of their former bastion of Toulon; in a pattern that was becoming all too familiar, the former mayor of that town, Le Chavallier, had been embroiled in his own legal difficulties and had nominated his wife to stand in his place, provoking the indignation of the electorate.

In July 1998, the seat was pulled out from under the Front National, when France's World Cup soccer victory, powered by a team made up to a great extent of immigrants, prompted a wave of popular patriotism which ran across the colour barrier. Even Le Pen couldn't think of anything to say as "Une France tricolore et multicolore" was celebrated with festivities all over the country, and the July 14 weekend was a lavish multi-ethnic event. The soccer final was not the end of Le Pen and company's streak of bad luck - the FN saw its logo temporarily hijacked in 1999 when the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo got wind that the copyright had expired and registered it for its own humorous ends, though the Front National managed to reclaim it after a court battle. In the meantime, Mégret's inability to wrest control of the party had prompted him to splinter off, trying to approach the moderate right parties by laying on a more centrist veneer. This shallow gambit failed, serving only to distance his own extreme-right followers. After the divorce between Le Pen and Mégret had become formal and Charlie Hebdo had been disposed of, the two fought for the right to use the Front National name and symbol. In the end Le Pen triumphed, and Mégret's party now runs under the banner of Mouvement National Républicain . Neither group did well in the 1999 European elections, however, where their aggregate popular vote dropped from 16 to 10 percent.

Nor has the moderate right fared much better. In 1998 the conservative Paris mayor Jean Tiberi was implicated in a scandal involving subsidized real-estate and salaries for fake jobs. This reflected badly on Chirac, recalling the string of scandals in the Mairie de Paris that took place whilst he was mayor. However, the revelation that Tiberi's wife earned money for a fake job led to a similar revelation about Jospin. In a cynical effort to whitewash the scandals, president and prime minister publicly united to impress upon the nation that France's real problems did not lie with these tabloid issues, which were better left forgotten.

But worse was yet to come for the president, when in September 2000 a journalist released a video-taped confession of the deceased RPR financier and former ally of Chirac, Jean-Claude Méry, disclosing an influence-peddling scandal leading directly to the president's office. The government reeled, lashing out with a judicial suit against the journalist and feverishly attempting to cut the trail before it could be traced back personally to Chirac. In the midst of this, a national referendum held to determine whether the presidential mandate should be limited to five years (it was decided in favour) was met by unprecedented voter apathy. Furthermore, progressive policies implemented by the government in the same year, including the legislation of a 35-hour working week and a 50:50 gender quota for representatives of political parties, encountered strenuous vocal resistance - this time from elements on the moderate right. The influences scandal provoked a serious fall in popularity for the president's party and a commensurate gain by Jospin and the Socialists, who redoubled their efforts to force Chirac to an early 2001 election.

As the new millennium dawned, Jospin may have been smiling - economic growth hit record levels in 2000, at three percent - but he had his own worries, too. Unemployment remained a worrying problem - official figures estimated it at ten percent of the population - despite numerous job creation schemes, and the government was suffering from a series of scandals. His cabinet had sustained a number of high-profile resignations, including employment minister Martine Aubray (author of the 35-hour working week), internationally respected finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn (caught up in a party funding scandal) and former prime minister Chevènement (in opposition to Jospin's plans for Corsica). Indeed, the Corsican problem had been the most thorny issue that Jospin had faced. At first he tried to counter the island's violent separatist movement with a low-level "dirty war", but later he shifted emphasis to negotiations for regional autonomy, an approach which provoked the ire of the Right - a no-confidence motion was tabled in 1999 against Jospin's attempts at compromise - and hopefulness among other regional nationalists (including Alsatians, Bretons and Basques). If Jospin's proposal succeeds (which it will not do if Chirac can help it), the island will have limited legislative power by 2004. Jospin's image was also hurt by comments he made on a state visit to Israel in 1999, when he characterized Hezbollah's campaign to free southern Lebanon as "terrorist" - Arab groups were outraged, and France's cultivated reputation as a paternalistic formal colonial power in the Middle East was seriously damaged. Nor was the Socialists' popularity aided by the trial in March 1999 of the Mitterrand-era cabinet ministers involved in the tragic tainted blood scandal of the mid-1980s. Through alleged stalling the government at the time failed to implement blood-screening, with the result that by the time of the trial four thousand transfusion recipients had contracted AIDS. The court doled out acquittals and suspended sentences for the three main defendants, including former prime minister Laurent Fabius; needless to say the verdict was greeted with outrage by the victims and their families and a wave of public cynicism. More skeletons tumbled out of the Socialists' Mitterrand closet, when Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, the former president's son was arrested on criminal charges in December 2000. Mitterrand fils , who was known during his father's presidency as "Papa m'a dit" ("Daddy told me") and "Monsieur Africa", was a powerful behind-the-scenes mover for the Socialist regime's less salubrious African policies, which included buying illegal gems from repressive and murderous African regimes, selling arms and laundering money.

On the popular front, French reaction against American economic and cultural domination found an unlikely figurehead in José Bové , a political activist and farmer enraged at US sanctions against European products (like Roquefort cheese), who publicly vandalized a McDonald's restaurant in Millau in 1999. Quickly converted into a popular hero, his actions fanned the flames of anti-hamburger indignation and encouraged grass-roots environmentalists and agricultural protectionists to band together against America, environmental damage and mal bouffe (junk food). More violent acts followed, including the bombing of a McDonald's drive-through in Brittany in August 1999, in which a 22-year-old employee was killed. At his trial in September 2000, Bové received a very light sentence for the affair (serving only three months despite a prior record of civil disobedience). Ironically, the media-conscious Bové, who portrays himself as the champion of the Gallic agriculteur, was raised in the US by expat French academics and began his rural career only shortly before all the trouble began.

Elsewhere in 2000 there were strikes early in the year involving teachers and civil servants opposed to government plans to modernize and streamline their sectors. Then, when fuel prices escalated in October, taxi-drivers and truckers in France hit the streets in protest, disrupting highway flow and fuel distribution, and temporarily paralysing the country; their example led to similar actions across Europe. As the year closed, Bové's ruminations on the dangers of factory farming seemed all the more poignant as mad cow disease (BSE) began to appear in the nation's cattle stock.

All of this made for a tumultuous entry into the new millennium. Jospin and the Socialists seemed destined to gain on their conservative rivals in the next round of elections even if only by dint of the moderate Right's inability to keep a lid on public revelations of its own corruption. Whatever weaknesses Jospin's patchwork "plural Left" may have had, the centrifugal forces which were fragmenting the Right were far more serious, and Jospin had gained appeal among the middle class by establishing himself as someone who could undertake reform while reining in radical Left reaction. The far Right, always a minority and now divided, seemed to be fading out, as their xenophobic rantings rang increasingly hollow in the pluralistic European federation. Ironically, in view of the collapse of Communism in eastern Europe, the party which seemed destined to gain the most was the French Communist Party, which had enjoyed a resurgence in its traditional home of the south, and whose leader, Jean-Claude Gayssot, at the time minister of transport and housing, was hailed universally as the most competent member of the cabinet