AS THE CAMPAIGN for the referendum on the proposed European Constitution hots up, the social front is still bubbling. Although the wave of mass demonstrations (see March issue of International ViewPoint) has receded for the moment, the different points of conflict are still very much alive.
Decentralised demonstrations have been called jointly by teachers' unions, school student organisations and the main parents' organisation for April 2.
Although the Fillon Plan has already been adopted by Parliament a united campaign could still block its application.
There has been a continuing rash of industrial struggles. Among postal workers local disputes have broken out in several areas over management plans to reorganise work practices.
After a five-day strike, train drivers at the Gare de l'Est in Paris forced management to withdraw a planned system of individualised "payment by merit".
There have also been strikes in the health service, a national strike in the STM electronics company and a strike on an unprecedented scale by employees of the Carrefour supermarket chain.
Against this background, the government is now seriously worried by the way the referendum campaign going. Opinion polls are now giving 54 to 55 percent in favour of a "No".
That rises to 58 percent among public sector workers, 71 per cent among low paid workers and 76 per cent among industrial workers. The polls also show that 58 per cent of those who identify with the Left will vote "No".
And in a worrying development for the Socialist Party leadership, one poll has just shown 53 per cent of SP voters opposed to the Constitution.
With eight weeks to go the partisans of a "yes" vote - the two mainstream parties of the Right, the UMP and the UDF, and the leaderships of the Socialist Party and the Greens, are wondering how to turn the tide. They are incapable of running a joint campaign.
For voters on the left, if the Socialist Party ran a joint campaign with the Right it would be the last nail in the coffin. Only the maverick Green Daniel Cohn-Bendit is crazy enough to hold joint meetings with the Right.
The mere fact that SP leader François Hollande appeared on the front page of the magazine Paris Match alongside UMP leader Nicolas Sarkozy caused rumblings in the party.
When reprimanded for taking part in the united "No from the left" campaign, Marc Dolez, an SP leader in the North of France, basically replied that he'd rather be SCCI with the Communist Party and the LCR than with Sarkozy.
When asked what he expected from Chirac and the government, François Rebsamen, director of the SP's "Yes" campaign, replied that Chirac's duty was "to explain to the French people what was at stake - and as for the government "the less it was seen the better".
A planned TV appearance by José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, was cancelled, not because of any protests from the "No" campaign, but under pressure from the "Yes" partisans who felt it might be a little counter-productive.
Meanwhile the broad campaign for a "No from the left" continues to expand, now involving around 500 local committees.
The government and the SP leadership will certainly counter-attack over the next eight weeks. They will be helped by extensive and friendly media coverage and outrageously partisan journalists.
Jacques Chirac himself will formally enter the fray in a well-prepared TV appearance on April 7. The result of the vote on May 29 is far from a foregone conclusion. But the "Yes" campaign is now clearly on the defensive.
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John Lister The introduction of user fees at Vietnam's district hospitals and commune level centres in 1989 ran alongside deregulation of pharmaceuticals, the legalisation of private practice and a halt to government funding for local level facilities. World Bank policy triggers health collapse
A World Bank report in 1995 surveyed the aftermath of a devastating collapse in what had been an effective and localised system:
• Deaths from malaria had reached the highest ever level in 1991, not least as a result of the under-funding of the National Malaria Control Program.
• District hospitals were running out of medical and surgical equipment, while "a large proportion of commune health facilities have become dilapidated to the point of being unusable."
NLF
• Outpatient attendances had halved, along with hospital admissions.
• Service users at public health facilities were paying twice as much as the government towards health spending, and even more was being spent by patients buying drugs from private practitioners or as selfmedication: in total the state budget paid just 16% of health spending in 1993.
By 1998 another World Bank analysis, which regarded Vietnam as "a not uninteresting case study" noted that 80% of health spending was paid out of pocket.
User fees for hospital care had risen 1000% in real terms between 1993 and 1998, while fees for private clinics and doctors had risen 600%.