The French Prime Minister cannot have been happy to see the newspapers yesterday.
"Lionel Jospin in search of a second wind", said the economic daily Les Echos. The front-page cartoon in Liberation showed Mr Jospin wrestling with a giant snake bearing the words "hospitals, retirement, public sector hiring freeze, education, taxes, 35 hours" - all reforms that Mr Jospin has unsuccessfully struggled to enact.
From the right-wing tabloid France Soir to the Communist daily L'Humanite, editorials were unanimous in decrying the "bogged down", "immobile" government which has "lost its compass".
The worst blow was struck by the pro-Socialist Le Monde's long analysis of Mr Jospin's "worrying solitude". In response to this barrage, the Prime Minister's office announced that he will address the French people at the end of the week.
First, Mr Jospin will let the storm pass. Last Friday, faced with a tax collectors' strike, his hard-working but politically inept Finance Minister, Mr Christian Sautter, postponed attempts to reform France's tax administration. Over the weekend, parents and teachers marched in the streets of Rouen, Nimes, Toulouse and Paris to protest against what they say is stingy funding of education. Hospital workers and teachers will march again today, followed by more teacher and tax collector protests on Thursday.
Mr Jospin then hopes to restore calm by announcing reductions in the "habitation tax" and income tax on the lowest salaries next year.
After coming to power in June 1997, Mr Jospin enjoyed the longest grace period of any Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic. The French economy grew faster than Germany's or Britain's. Unemployment began falling and symbolic legislation was passed to give more rights to homosexuals and women.
Then last autumn the Finance Minister, Mr Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was forced to resign because he was accused of receiving bogus legal fees from a student insurance group close to the Socialist Party. What should have been good news - Ffr 30 billion in unexpected government revenue in 1999 - became a liability as politicians and economists argued about how the cagnotte (nest egg) should be spent. Most of it went towards the budget deficit, but the knowledge that an even bigger, Ffr 50 billion cagnotte can be expected this year whetted the public appetite.
If the government is so rich, the average Frenchman is asking, why are his taxes still among the highest in Europe?
The failed reform of the justice system, Mr Jospin's pro-Israeli gaffe last month and Corsican policy that has zig-zagged between repression of nationalist extremists and concessions to them, all added to Mr Jospin's woes. It is as if, in anticipation of next year's municipal elections and the 2002 legislative and presidential elections, the government simply stopped working.
Several of Mr Jospin's most valued ministers - Mrs Martine Aubry at Employment, Mrs Elisabeth Guigou at Justice, Mr Jean-Claude Gayssot at Transport, Mr Pierre Moscovici at European Affairs - must resign if they win the mayors' offices for which they are candidates. Meanwhile, if the 2002 presidential election took place now, an opinion poll last week showed, Mr Jospin would gain only 48 per cent of the vote. President Jacques Chirac would win with 52 per cent.
