Chirac left with no excuses as right gets huge majority

No more excuses. No more alibis. The huge majority of the centre right in the new French parliament, elected on Sunday, gives President Jacques Chirac an unprecedented opportunity to push through his promised reforms of the sprawling French state.

But the sheer size of the majority, with 355 of the 577 seats going to Mr Chirac's new, unified centre-right party, will raise expectations and may invite the destructive faction-fighting that has damaged the French right in the past.

President Chirac confirmed the centrist Jean-Pierre Raffarin as Prime Minister yesterday with a mandate to cut taxes, shrink the state, fight crime and find a way of refloating the country's creaking public health and pensions policies.

After five years of divided government – and nine years of left-right co-habitation in the past 16 – France finds itself abruptly with almost all the levers of power concentrated in the same hands. The centre right, mostly grouped in one party for the first time, controls the presidency, the government, both houses of parliament and a majority of regions and large towns.

Both President Chirac's previous spells in charge of national affairs – from 1986 till 1988 and 1995 till 1997 – have ended in acrimony and popular rejection. At 69, the man who has symbolised the frenetic changeability and fundamental immovability of French politics for three decades,has been given a golden opportunity to redeem his political career.

But despite the big majority for the centre-right in the second round of the parliamentary elections on Sunday, there is no clear consensus in the country for the kind of economic and state reforms that Mr Chirac and Mr Raffarin, 53, have vaguely promised.

There is a widespread conviction that taxes are too high (taking 46 per cent of GNP, compared with an EU average of 41 per cent and 36.6 per cent in Britain). But there is no broad agreement on what parts of the state apparatus should be cut. Less spending on health? Fewer high-speed rail lines? Less generous welfare payments?

In their honeymoon period since the President's re-election on 5 May, Mr Chirac and Mr Raffarin have given no clear indications of how they propose to pay for their promised one-third cut in income taxes and reduction in VAT and social charges. Although Mr Raffarin's origins are in the pro-European, market-oriented Démocratie Libérale party, his government appears on a collision course with its partners in euroland.

There seems to be no realistic prospect of the Chirac- Raffarin government meeting the commitment of the 12 eurozone countries to reduce their budget deficits to zero by the year 2004, despite reassurances given to Brussels.

The government has prom-ised to be closer to the people, yet the Raffarin administration has shown the tendency of previous governments to surrender to competing pressure groups. Doctors have been paid off with higher consultation fees (but some are still angry); hunters have been given a longer period to shoot birds, against EU rules; owners of large farms have been exempted from a tax intended to promote smaller-scale, environmentally friendly agriculture.

Mr Raffarin, a provincial politician with a background in marketing and little experience of national politics, has proved adept at giving ground to single-issue campaigners. But street protests destroyed attempts by the previous centre-right government to reform the French state in 1995 and 1956. Serious opposition is likely to appear again on the streets. Although the left avoided the rout it suffered in 1993, the Socialists lost almost half their seats on Sunday. They and their close allies have 149 seats, the Communists 21 and the Greens three.

There were losses. The former employment minister Martine Aubry lost her seat near Lille. The left-wing nationalist Jean-Pierre Chev-ènement was defeated in his home town of Belfort. The Communist leader, Robert Hue, lost his seat in the Paris suburbs by a handful of votes and might face a leadership challenge.The Socialist leader, François held on to his seat in a tough battle in Corrèze in the South-west.

There appear no signs of an early leadership challenge and therefore no early decisions on whether the Socialists should turn towards the left or to the Blairist centre.

* The French anti-global activist Jose Bove has been told he must begin a three-month jail term this week for ransacking a McDonald's fast-food restaurant.