French politics have come to a strange pass when the right-wing president and Socialist prime minister are more in accord with one another than with their own political allies.
Yet that is what has happened in the run-up to the May 2nd Brussels summit that will finalise arrangements for Economic and Monetary Union. In his speech to the National Assembly yesterday, the Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, like President Jacques Chirac on April 16th, tried to assuage fears about the loss of French sovereignty and emphasised that France will be stronger within a strong Europe. Mr Jospin placed more emphasis on employment and social issues, while Mr Chirac spoke of enterprise, but there was little difference of substance.
Notwithstanding Mr Chirac's enthusiastic endorsement of the euro, his unruly heirs in the Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR) announced even before Mr Jospin's speech that they would vote against a non-binding resolution supporting French participation in EMU today. The resolution is expected to pass despite the opposition of the RPR and two parties in Mr Jospin's government, the Communists and the enement's
Movement of Citizens. It was a sign of the importance Mr Jospin ascribes to EMU that the speech was only his second to parliament since he took office last June. He had kept his strong commitment, he said, "to meet the deadlines for EMU and strengthen the EU to put it at the service of its people".
Like Mr Chirac, Mr Jospin rejected demands for a referendum on the euro - from his Communist allies, among others - on the grounds that the French said "oui" to EMU when they approved the Maastricht treaty in 1992.
The Prime Minister admitted he'd had doubts "about the method used to strengthen the unity of Europe, a method that gave priority to monetary questions and an insufficient place to the fundamental question of employment". But he concluded that because of France's central role in the EU, the rejection of the Maastricht treaty would have endangered "the entire edifice of European integration" and risked destroying the work achieved by French governments since the second World War.
His own vision of Europe had not varied, Mr Jospin said. "I am still guided by the same principles: the primacy of politics over economics, of democracy over technocracy, of growth over austerity." His Europe was "that of union between independent nations wishing to preserve their respective identities".
Today, Mr Philippe Seguin, the leader of the opposition RPR, will argue that Mr Jospin abandoned the four conditions for the euro on which he campaigned last year, or that they were achieved through no merit of his government. The four conditions were the inclusion of Spain and Italy in EMU, that the euro not be over-valued compared to the dollar, a "solidarity and growth pact", and a political counter-weight to the European Central Bank.
Mr Seguin sat slouched during Mr Jospin's speech, leaning into his hand and scowling. "I want to fight this grouchy mood that some cultivate regarding Europe," Mr Jospin said. The opposition benches booed so loudly that the Prime Minister twice interrupted his address to scold them. He accused them of debasing an historic moment.
Mr Jospin chose the first anniversary of Mr Chirac's dissolution of parliament (which ended disastrously for the right) to make his speech. The two men are expected to compete for the presidency in the 2002 election.
