The synthesis unlikely never took place

The loop is buckled. On the eve of his television intervention on 14 July, Jacques Chirac calls in the centre of its policy the fight against the social divide. It is on this topic that he had been elected in 1995, bypassing the other on his left right candidate, Edouard Balladur, and depriving of oxygen the Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin. And it is on this topic that it has completed its quinquennium. The social cohesion plan presented Wednesday 30 June in the Council of Ministers by Jean-Louis Borloo nearly 13 billion euros promised over five years is the response to the double election shock by the majority in March regional elections and European elections in June. Somehow, it symbolizes the social turn of the quinquennium on electoral push of the left background. This plan is also the application of a lesson learned during the years of cohabitation. First to flush out the "tax pot" which so complicated the life of the Prime Minister of the time, in 1999, Lionel Jospin, Jacques Chirac is well placed to know that periods of economic recovery are socially difficult to manage: some people see their situation improve, others sink in difficulties. The feeling of inequality increases and frustrations are aggravated. It is particularly necessary to deal with all those that Jean-Louis Borloo calls the "forgotten of the Republic". Finally, this plan is a balance of any account, i.e. the ultimate opportunity for Jacques Chirac to correct what didn't work in its double mandate. All those who saw him work during these years believe that the President of the Republic is more concerned much, apart from a vast movement of street, a tear of the social pact. Real risk if it refers to the prepared right finding by Jean-Louis Borloo and on the left, by Laurent Fabius. Both speak in almost identical terms of two France move in opposite directions, the scope by the idea of progress, the other attempted by a deaf dissent with be deprived of hope.

The fight against the social divide is therefore to return, but, as in 1995, it has lot of ambiguity, its sum of contradictions. To be elected President, Jacques Chirac was at the time relied on two pillars: to his left, Philippe Séguin, Herald of the Republican voluntarism, champion of the strong State, which infuriated the Liberals claiming a massive policy of fight against exclusions rather than tax cuts. At his right, Alain Madelin, symbol of liberalism, which promised to running the social elevator "releasing energies." The synthesis, unlikely, never took place. Once elected, Jacques Chirac has chosen as Prime Minister, Alain Juppe, who remained, during any election campaign, out of this double language. His concern to him was to restore the social and budgetary accounts very degraded. He put so much heart and it is took so evil that it leads to the dissolution missed 1997. Nine years later, while Alain Juppe prepares to fade from political life, Jacques Chirac calls staged a Duet that strangely resembles the Seguin-Madelin couple. There is one side Jean-Louis Borloo, who, in full budgetary scarcity, rehabilitate the social treatment of the unemployment and gets the global plan to combat exclusion (housing, employment, integration of youth) had dreamed about Philippe Séguin. And then there's the other side Nicolas Sarkozy, who, in Bercy, is heard much more liberal music: the Minister of finance launches a burden against the 35 hours, rehabilitates the work value and gives attention to the middle class which considers that it would be a serious mistake to neglect the frustrations. Politically, it is clear the benefits that can be drawn Jacques Chirac this staging: the left is taken to reverse by the Borloo plan, which it barely criticising the philosophy, the Liberals feel comforted by the comments of Nicolas Sarkozy. The President occupies all space and, bonus, locked his bulky Finance Minister on his right flank. However, it is highly doubtful that Nicolas Sarkozy wisely remained in his case, because his concern is less to remain Minister to prepare the presidential election of 2007. "Nothing is more important than the definition of what should be a social policy", felt recently in an interview with the "voices" (June 23, 2004). "Over the past ten years, the budgetary cost of the devices for employment has increased by 75, while the number of unemployed has decreased..." "We have no need of more allowances, but more jobs", added again. A clear call to the nine and a barely veiled way to highlight the contradictions of the speech Chirac supporter. The fight against the social divide had dominated the presidential campaign of 1995. The definition of a new social contract may well dominate that of 2007.