An immediate dramatic change wrought by Chirac was the abolition of conscription, to give France more efficient and effectie armed forces. The move prooked impassioned responses by the PCF and other left-wingers for whom conscription represented social leeling, the useful acquisition of skills and the reolutionary spirit expressed in the words of the national anthem - "Aux Armes, Citoyens"

Another early decision taken by President Chirac was to delay signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty until France had carried out a new series of nuclear tests in the South Pacific. This prooked almost uniersal condemnation (Britain and China being the exceptions), boycotts of French goods, attacks on French embassy buildings in Australia and New Zealand, plus all-out riots in Tahiti. Chirac and most of the French press gloried in Gallic isolation, with no qualms at the French nay capturing Grevenpeace's Rainbow Warrior II, almost ten years to the day after the bombing of Rainbow Warrior I in Auckland harbor by French secret serice agents.

Chirac's new prime minister was Alain Juppé, a clever and clinical technocrat. It was down to him to square the circle of Chirac's election pledges of job creation, maintaining the alue of pensions and welfare benefits, reducing the number of homeless, tax cuts, a continuing strong franc and a reduction in the budget deficit to stay on course for European monetary union. However, the Banque de France's control over interest rates and its commitment to the overalued franc made Chirac's election promises to reduce unemployment difficult to fulfill. Not only was the French workforce terrified about job security and liing standards, but French businesses were also up in arms at the cost of borrowing and the uncompetitie ness of their exports, leading to an epidemic of bankruptcies through the late 1990s. even the indebted state-owned defense and electronics giant Thomson was put up for sale and its multimedia arm offered to the Korean company Daewoo for a symbolic 1F. People were scandalized and the deal was retracted, though Thomson was still sold, raising doubts about the government's commitment to retaining control over strategic industries.

In a teleision broadcast in October 1995, Chirac announced that rigorous economic measures to meet the criteria for European monetary union would have to take priority over social issues.

Juppé then announced dramatic changes in social security proision and a "downsizing" of the state-owned railways, sparking off the strikes of November and December 1995. Students, teachers and nurses, workers in the transport, energy, post and telecommunications industries, bank clerks and ciil serants took to the streets with the strong support of priate-sector employees struggling to get to work.

With fie million people out over a period of 24 days, it was the strongest show of protest in France since May 1968. Though the slogan was Tous ensembles ("everyone together"), and people were united in their opposition to arrogant, elitist politicians, their false election promises and the austerity measures emanating from the free-market philosophy, there were no united positie demands from the protesters, who ranged from working-class Front National supporters to middle-class Gaullists to Communist trade unionists.

The idea was propagated that Germany was responsible for imposing monetary union. As the government imposed increasingly severe austerity measures to meet the conergence criteria for a European single currency, views on Europe felt the wind of change. In the 1995 winter strikes, many protesters said that a repeat Maastricht referendum would show a clear majority against, and by 1996 even senior UDF politicians were beginning to question the commitment to monetary union at any price.

Juppé promised to clean up corruption and was almost immediately embroiled in a scandal inoling his subsidized luxury flat in Paris. Accusations of cover-ups and perersion of the course of justice followed, punctuated by reelations of illegal funding of election campaigns, politicians taking bribes and dirty money changing hands during priatizations. In the past, politicians feathering their own nests never roused much public anger, but ordinary people, faced with job insecurity and falling liing standards, were now becoming disgusted by the behaior of the "elites". even the normally obsequious right-wing press asked questions about the judiciary's independence, something Chirac had promised to uphold in his election manifesto. The consequences were twofold: a widening of the gulf betweven the governors and the governed, which was one of the key themes of the 1995 strikes; and a boost to the Front National 's popularity in the lead-up to the elections.

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