FRANCE: The French Prime Minister, Mr Jean-Pierre Raffarin, gave the impression of a man who has just stepped back from the abyss at his new year's reception for the press yesterday.
Scarcely a month ago, Mr Raffarin's opinion poll approval ratings fell to 29 per cent. With the French in a more giving mood after the holidays, he has risen to a still poor approval rate in the mid-30s.
At least he could joke about it. His office was "constantly being reminded by this or that magazine that the end is due next week," he quipped, alluding to a cover story in L'Express magazine last autumn that reported "the end" of the Raffarin government.
Now Mr Raffarin can hope to keep his job after an expected cabinet reshuffle following regional elections in March. Yesterday he acknowledged the country's political doldrums, saying he wants to give French people "a taste for the future" and promising that "beautiful politics can come back." His wish list for 2004 combined assertiveness, numerous promises of commissions, reports and legislation, and plain wishful thinking.
In an assertive vein, taking up a theme raised less forcefully by his boss, President Jacques Chirac, Mr Raffarin expressed concern over the exchange rate between the dollar and euro, which has reached a record high against the US currency.
"I demand, conscientiously, that the appropriate authorities of Europe remind everyone strongly that unstable exchange rates are neither in the interest of the United States nor of Europe," Mr Raffarin said. "We must together find the means to ensure parities that are more in line with economic reality."
Mr Raffarin appealed to the two right-wing parties, the Gaullist UMP, of which he is a member, and the centre-right UDF, to adopt a common strategy for the regional elections.
In the last regional elections in 1998, the right won 14 of the country's 22 regions, but the victory was tainted by the fact that four regions were won with the support of the extreme right-wing National Front.
Division between the UMP and UDF will help the National Front's leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, as well as the opposition socialists. But in the most crucial region - Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, where Mr Le Pen is standing - UMP officials already say they believe a joint list with the UDF is impossible.
Mr Raffarin made a feeble attempt at defusing the crisis in scientific research by pretending it didn't exist. Mr Chirac last week promised to raise French investment in research from its present level of 2.2 per cent of GDP to 3 per cent by the year 2010 - a goal set by the EU four years ago.
On the day of Mr Chirac's statement, French scientists issued a petition saying that "despite official rhetoric affirming that research is a national priority, the French government is in the process of shutting down the public-research sector."
The protest has been signed by 4,200 scientists, all of whom threaten to resign. Among them is the former education minister Mr Claude Allégre, a geologist, who says he will go to the US to work.
Mr Raffarin promised new legislation on scientific research and more modern management, focusing on everything except money. Despite scientists' complaints that their funding was frozen in 2003, and that the sums allotted were often not disbursed, Mr Raffarin said, "I solemnly affirm that it is false to say that the means at the disposal of public research are diminishing."
The government would "stand firm" on its commitment to economic reform, he promised.
But you had to search hard through his leftist-sounding promises of "the fair distribution of the fruits of growth" and "continuity in the defence of our social model" to discern a shift towards le capitalisme sauvage.
To save the French social security system, Mr Raffarin announced, "we must succeed in reforming health insurance." The law he vowed to present to the National Assembly in July would maintain medical insurance for all, without privatisation, he promised.
The best news from Mr Raffarin was that over 1,500 fewer people died on French roads last year than in 2002.