BRITAIN has party conferences at this time of year; France has strikes.

Yesterday it seemed that union leaders’ ambitions to get 1.5 million people involved in the “Black Tuesday” day of national protest had been disappointed. All the same, rail, bus and tram travel was disrupted across the country, and many flights were cancelled.

Schools were closed. About 15 per cent of postal workers walked out, according to the mail service, and newspapers were not delivered. Demonstrators threw stones at police, who hurled teargas back.

Yesterday’s protest is one in a long list of challenges to a new French Government’s fond hopes of reform. Above all, it is a test of the new Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin. This time could be different. The strikes are popular, as they always have been. But a new mood of pessimism afflicting the country is the dominant finding of opinion polls.

That gloom may simply lead people to reject all attempts at reform — as yesterday’s strikers did. It may, however, lead to a recognition that France will have to make painful changes if it is not to be left behind by the continent it is accustomed to leading.

So far, there are worrying signs that Villepin is trying to have it both ways: talking about restoring French greatness to hide the bitter taste of his reform plans — and then backing down from reform anyway when he meets opposition. Yesterday’s protests, backed by all of France’s main trade union federations (which are more accustomed to feuding with each other), embraced a breathtakingly wide portfolio of causes. Any grievance you could think of on the Centre Left is there, like the placards outside a Labour Party conference on a sunny day.

“Together for employment, purchasing power, workers’ rights” was the banner at the front of the Paris march. “We are protesting against the insecurity of our jobs, over our salaries and because we’re generally fed up,” said Philippe du Pire, a Paris transport worker.

The protesters object to more privatisations (such as that of the Corsican state-owned ferry company, whose proposed sale sparked off strikes at the weekend).

They don’t like a new law passed by the Villepin Government in May allowing companies with fewer than 20 employees to sack workers without having to comply with the complex employment code.

They don’t like the threat of outsourcing and restructuring. They don’t like what they feel is a fall in “spending power”, as costs, particularly heating and petrol, have risen faster than pay. They don’t like thoughts of scrapping the 35-hour week. And they don’t like unemployment of almost 10 per cent.

Four months is too little by which to judge Villepin. But the mixed messages he is sending do not encourage confidence in his commitment to push through tough reforms.

He spent the summer quietly planning cuts to the civil service, but has already watered them down. He picked on Hewlett Packard, the Californian technology giant, for staff cuts, an easy target for a US-bashing politician.

Meanwhile, his budget for next year has come under scathing attack from critics, including Le Monde newspaper, for its fanciful expectations of growth. If those are not met — and few think they will be — France will breach the Eurozone’s rules on budget deficits.

Villepin’s defensiveness is understandable. Weekend polls showed almost three quarters supporting the unions. Protests brought down two centre-right prime ministers under President Chirac — Alain Juppé and Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

On the other hand, he has enjoyed a surge of popularity in the past few months. The question is whether he will be confident enough to push through reform, or will retreat to the language of greatness without taking the steps to support it.

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