Unpolluted by reality

France is still in the grip of precisely the political mentality that has prevailed here since the Middle Ages. As the protesters themselves cheerfully declare: It's the street that rules. Today's mobs, like their predecessors, are notable for their poor grasp of economic principles and their hostility to the free market. Only wardrobe distinguishes these demonstrations from those that led to the invasion of the national convention in 1795, when first the mob protested that commodity prices were too high; when the government responded with price controls, it protested with equal vigor that goods had disappeared and black market prices had risen. Similarly, the students on the streets today espouse economic views entirely unpolluted by reality. If the CPE is enacted, said one young woman, "You'll get a job knowing that you've got to do every single thing they ask you to do because otherwise you may get sacked."

Imagine that.

As a legacy of this long tradition, the choice in France now is between popular legislation -- that is, useless legislation -- and the street. Thus the paradox at the heart of the protests: Those who want power exploit the mobs to maneuver themselves into position, but having gained power cannot use it to achieve anything worthwhile, lest the same tactics be used against them. The fear of the mob has created a cadre of politicians in France who are unable to speak the truth and thereby prepare French citizens for the inevitable. No one in France -- not one single politician, nor anyone in the media -- is willing to say it: France's labor laws are an absurdity, and if they are not reformed at once, France will go under. "What do they think?" said my driver, who was not, he told me, a mover by trade but an unemployed radio journalist forced to moonlight. "Do they think that jobs just fall from the sky?"

Apparently, they think just that.

In this regard, France, like every European country, remains blackmailed by its history. French rulers, seemingly unable to appeal to the legitimacy they possess as elected leaders, instead behave as popular kings, or as leaders of some faction -- like a king's ministers. They cannot seem to forget what happens when a king loses his popularity. There are thus two choices for the French ruling elite, as they see it: toady or go under.

When Margaret Thatcher took power in 1979, an urgent question hung in the air: In Britain, who rules? It was a question to which Britain's powerful unions had a ready answer: We do. Men such as Arthur Scargill, the head of the miner's union, were convinced that although they would never lead Britain, it was within their power to run it and to run it for their benefit through labor laws that anyone beyond the union halls could see would destroy the nation as a competitive economic power. Thatcher so thoroughly crushed both Scargill and his union that neither recovered. For a brief moment, power politics stood revealed. The unions had made a bid for power. They lost.

The same question is now being raised in France: Who rules? This is the second time in 11 years that a popularly elected government here faces dismissal not from the voters, but from the streets. If this does not represent a direct challenge to the government's power, it is hard to know what would. Should the government fall, the question will have been answered.

And the answer will be the mob. As usual.

Let's face it; they're not the only ones.