Juppe under fire from all sides

France in revolt: Beleaguered Prime Minister tries to bolster position as government denies that reform package is EU-driven

The French Prime Minister, Alain Juppe, appeared to be fighting to keep his job yesterday after Tuesday's vast street demonstrations against his welfare reform plans.

Despite renewed support from President Jacques Chirac, who called on ministers to show ''firmness and calm'', Mr Juppe was the object of widespread criticism, not just from opposition politicians and commentators, but from within his own political grouping as well.

Strikers in the key railway and public transport sectors are still refusing to return to work despite a string of concessions, and the question now being asked is whether Mr Juppe is the problem rather than the solution.

The sharpest comment came from a young Gaullist MP, Philippe Briand, who said - in remarks later denied - ''There is a Juppe problem. He is incapable of explaining things ... It is not enough to have ideas and work hard. He has no rapport with the population.''

Exactly how disastrous Mr Juppe's communications have been was illustrated by a poll taken for a television discussion programme last night. It showed that barely 40 per cent could identify any of Mr Juppe's 22 reform proposals - despite a concerted publicity effort by the Prime Minister's office.

In an unambiguous effort to bolster his position, Mr Juppe held unscheduled meetings yesterday afternoon with a series of heavyweights from the political right, including two former prime ministers, Edouard Balladur and Raymond Barre, and the former president Valery Giscard d'Estaing.

He also announced that he would personally chair the ''jobs summit'' - the agreed designation of the ''social summit'' demanded by the trade unions, which will take place on 21 December. The most hard line union leaders, Louis Viannet of the CGT and Marc Blondel of the Force Ouvriere, insist they will negotiate with no one except the Prime Minister.

There was a little consolation for Mr Juppe from a poll of employers, most of whom said that he should stand firm, and expressed confidence that the government knew where it was going.

The number of times that individual union officials said yesterday they had ''won'' also suggested that a return to work might be only a matter of time.

The question is whether Mr Juppe can wait that long. The balance between the Prime Minister and the protesters seems increasingly fine, with strikers taking new courage from Tuesday's huge protests and Mr Juppe maintaining yesterday that ''there is no longer any reason for the strike''.

Aside from giving trade union leaders the written confirmation and ''further guarantees'' they have asked for, the one crucial point he has left to concede is the basic restructuring of the welfare system - something he has ruled out.

The Foreign Minister, Herve de Charette, vigorously denied yesterday that the welfare reforms have anything to do with the European Union, the Maastricht treaty or the timetable for a single currency. The possibility, however remote, that the protests could unite the public and private sectors of the economy in common revolt against the EU would be the ultimate nightmare for the government of a country that sees itself as the heart of Europe.