Who will go down in history as the leader of the European left? With socialists in government in 11 of 15 EU countries and the new millennium approaching, the French Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, has no intention of allowing Tony Blair's soft-left, neo-liberal Third Way ideology to prevail.
Mr Jospin does not have Mr Blair's charisma, or his privileged relationship with Bill Clinton, the de-facto originator of the Third Way. And Mr Blair's ideological inroads into Germany and Italy have disheartened the French Prime Minister. A joint Anglo-German Third Way Manifesto issued just before the European election last June so annoyed Mr Jospin that he didn't bother to meet Mr Blair when the latter came through France on his summer holiday.
Much of the Third Way ideology - its celebration of entrepreneurs and deregulation, its emphasis on "individual responsibility" - is anathema to the French left. Mr Jospin has recently scored two small victories over Mr Blair: economic growth in France is superior to Britain's, and after his June flirtation with Blairist capitalism proved disastrous at the polls, the German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, has returned to the "Franco-German marriage".
During a visit to Berlin last weekend, Mr Jospin gently scolded Mr Schroder. "There is a European vision of the relationship between the economy and society," Mr Jospin said. "That is why socialism is an idea that was born in Europe, an idea that is still alive in Europe today."
Meanwhile back in Paris, Mr Jospin's leftist credentials were widely questioned. The French Prime Minister, and his attempts to define le jospinisme, almost met their nemesis in the form of Bibendum, the roly-poly white rubber Michelin man who has been the symbol of the tyre company for the past century.
On September 8th, Michelin's new chairman, 36-year-old UStrained Edouard Michelin, announced record first-term profits of 19 billion French francs (£2.28 billion). In the same presentation, delivered not to the company's employees but to financial analysts, Michelin executives said they would sack 7,500 workers over the next three years to make themselves more competitive. The company's share price immediately rose 13 per cent.
This is exactly the sort of "Anglo-Saxon" behaviour which the French left associates with Blairism and capitalisme sauvage. In a September 13th television appearance, Mr Jospin said the Michelin move was "shocking", but he disappointed his followers by admitting his government's impotence. "I don't think it is any longer possible to administer the economy," the Prime Minister said. "It is not by law, by texts, that you regulate the economy . . . The state cannot do everything."
The Citizens' Movement, a small party allied to the socialists, found the remarks "hallucinatory". "Is Lionel Jospin on the left?" was a widespread newspaper headline. In Plantu's frontpage Le Monde cartoon, a sweating Lionel Jospin sat backstage before addressing socialist parliamentarians at Strasbourg on Monday, repeating over and over, "I am on the left, I am on the left, I am on the left . . ."
Little matter that Mr Jospin totally contradicted his previous statements in the Strasbourg speech, saying that "globalisation does not render states impotent. Economic policies can have a strong impact on economic developments". In one hour, he used the words "regulation" and "regulate" 21 times. He promised to fine profit-making companies which carry out mass sackings and said his government would give tax relief to unemployed people with debts.
The communist daily L'Humanite urged the Prime Minister to "try a little harder, comrade," but on the whole the French left was delighted. "Lionel Jospin has shown which camp he is in," the Green deputy Noel Mamere said.
The next test of Mr Jospin's socialist mettle is due six weeks from now, when he will unveil his ideology for the 21st century at a meeting of the Socialist International in Paris.
Until now, Mr Jospin's doctrine could be summed up with catchphrases such as "Yes to the market economy, No to the market society," and "A modern country, a humane society". If Jospinism is going to win converts, he must add substance to this blurry vision of capitalism with a human face.
In a globalised world, it has not escaped Mr Jospin's notice that regulations must also be global. "It is the mission of the left to invent new national regulations," he said in Strasbourg, "but also European and international regulations."
This rhetoric may irritate the leaders who will assemble in Florence on November 21st for a "Summit of Modernisers". After Mr Clinton, Mr Blair and Mr Schroder accepted Mr Massimo d'Alema's invitation, Mr Jospin reluctantly agreed to attend, too. So if you miss old-fashioned left-right ideological clashes, keep your eye on Mr Jospin.
