France in crisis over jobs law
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has been sidelined. President Jacques Chirac has been forced into a subtle switch of loyalties to save face. And the two leaders’ mutual rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, is now at centre-stage.
It was a worst-case scenario for the two leading men of France, bogged down in a crisis that has turned the streets into protest zones, hobbled high schools and universities and is now taking its toll at the top. For the brash Sarkozy, who wants to be president next year, it was like a campaign ad.
