Catherwood LibraryILR School

Eager to avoid a repeat of the political fall-out that brought down France's last center-right government when it tried to force the issue of public sector pension changes during the 1995-1997 legislature, France's current center-right premier Jean-Pierre Raffarin confined his first speech on the issue to hints and side-stepping yesterday. There was no sign of the hard-line approach that Mr. Raffarin's government took only two weeks ago with pension cuts for 220,000 public energy and gas utility employees (see WIT for Jan. 13, 2003), as the premiere spoke largely of "open discussion," the "general interest" and "fairness" between the national pension systems for public and private sector employees. With over 300,000 people attending more than 100 demonstrations organized by France's three major union confederations over the weekend to protest against attempts to change the national pension system, just about the only definite statement from Mr. Raffarin was the setting of a June deadline for agreement on pension change with France's labor movement.