DIANA PINTO
95
It
is significant that Chevenement's dynamism as the minister of in–
dustry, his belief that France is an international industrial giant now
that its key industries and banks are nationalized clashes deeply with
the economic analyses of Closets, Albert, and Mine, despite the lat–
ter's approval of nationalizations. Mine pulls the rug out from under
official industrial rhetoric and plans to put France at the center of the
map in the computer revolution, as the headquarters of a major
computer institute, by stressing that the computer revolution will
not be a third industrial revolution or the motor for the resurgence of
the French economy. Computers have enormous social consequences,
but few economic ones, because of their low cost, and lack of spill–
overs like those of the car and appliance industries of the 1950s.
If
Closets, Albert and Mine disagree with official Socialist
voluntarism on the economic front, it is really in the realm of social
analysis that the full impact of their corrosive ideas makes itself felt,
once again through the prism of unemployment.
The explosive nature of Closets's, Albert's, and Mine's critiques
of French society stems from the fact that they are drawing a major
social cleavage
inside
the very ranks of those social forces which
brought Mitterrand to power. Privileges are not on the Right and
justice on the Left in these new analyses, but rather are found on
both sides of the ideological divide.
If
the
TentieT
is a negative
force, the small entrepreneur who takes risks and develops new
economic activities and jobs is a new (and somewhat unlikely)
Socialist hero whose rights must be protected and activities en–
couraged. Similarly, on the other side of the divide, blue collar
workers with difficult jobs, workers in temporary jobs or in marginal
activities, and above all, the unemployed merit sympathy and social
concern, but
not
the vested interests of the Left, i.e., powerful service
sectors with their trade union clout in the civil service, educational
system, banking sector, or multiple state-associated companies (such
as the electric company EDF-GDF or Air France).
This new analysis of French society and its fundamental ,in–
equalities leads to pointing out new enemies in the quest for social
justice as opposed to social peace. Three stand out in particular: the
neocorporatist interests which, behind an ideology of universalism,
are really only pleading for their own selfish interests - special
premiums, reduced fares and prices, early retirement plans, fewer
working hours, subsidized vacations and cultural activities. All these
costs are borne by the collectivity. Closets in particular points out
