Day of strikes threatens to derail Villepin's presidential hopes

After six months of relative social quiet, the main trade union federations are banking that France's mood of chronic anxiety will translate into a massive turnout from both the public and private sectors. More than 140 demonstrations are planned during the day, the largest - in accordance with time-honoured union ritual - from the Place de la République in Paris.

Alongside the traditional heavyweights in the railways and electricity industry, organisers predict a strong showing from teachers and civil servants, as well as manufacturing workers whose jobs are under increasing threat of being relocated to eastern Europe and Asia.

Widespread disruption is predicted on the transport network, with metro and bus routes in the capital running at little over 50 per cent capacity. Delays and some cancellations are likely on short-haul flights.

For the suave 51-year-old Prime Minister, who has enjoyed a political honeymoon since being appointed after the EU constitution debacle in May, the arrival of the regular autumnal grogne - or social unrest - comes at a sensitive moment, and much will ride on how he handles himself in the days and weeks ahead.

After winning plaudits for an energetic if contradictory policy of "reform from within" - in other words fighting the battle against unemployment while preserving as much as possible of the country's generous welfare system - he has been pushed on to the defensive in the past week by the crisis over the privatisation of a Corsican ferry company. Seamen at the state-owned National Corsica Mediterranean Company (SNCM) have been on strike for two weeks over plans to sell the debt-ridden operator, and in Corsica itself there have been scenes of brute thuggery as the dispute takes on overtly nationalist overtones.

After initially insisting that the SNCM be made over completely to the private sector, M. de Villepin has offered to maintain a 25 per cent public stake, leading to accusations that he has surrendered to violence.

The Prime Minister has been able to claim a small but steady fall in the jobless figures to under 10 per cent of the workforce - a success partly attributed to a new labour contract introduced by decree which makes it easier for companies employing no more than 20 staff to hire and fire workers. And after successfully deputising for Jacques Chirac while the President was in hospital last month, M. de Villepin has seen his own political stock improve dramatically, to the extent where he is now openly spoken of as a likely candidate for the 2007 election.

The wave of social discontent about to crash on the government could therefore make or break M. de Villepin. Either he succeeds in his Gaullist man-of-destiny role and defuses the movement with some well-calculated gestures. Or he becomes another in the long line of prime ministerial casualties, humbled by the enduring truculence of the protesting classes.