Tempers will not be improved by the announcement yesterday that unemployment rose by 1.1 per cent, (32,000) in May, the sharpest monthly rise for four years. Although the increase cannot be blamed on Mr Jospin, it will strengthen the voices of those calling on him to abandon budget orthodoxy and pump up the economy with salary rises and increased public spending.Mr Jospin’s discomfort has been greeted with undisguised joy on the centre right. A continuing row threatens to destabilise the awkward balancing act he has attempted since he became Prime Minister on 3 June. She reported back last week that there was no way to save the plant without jeopardising Renault’s wider strategy to improve its international competitiveness.Jean-Luc Dehaene, the Belgian Prime Minister, accused Mr Jospin of “giving false hope” to the Vilvorde workers to win votes in France.

Even though the French state remains the largest single shareholder in the company, Mr Jospin says he cannot force Renault to change its mind. “That’s all very well but Jospin ought to have known that when he was in opposition,” Mr Dehaene said.Mr Jospin will seek to explain himself to the Socialist group in parliament today and, possibly, to the nation in a television interview on Thursday. During the election campaign in May, he said he would force the partially state-owned car company to “re-open the dossier” of the closure of the Vilvorde plant, near Brussels, with the loss of 3,100 jobs.Earlier this month, Mr Jospin appointed an independent consultant to study the options. The issue, although it concerns jobs abroad, threatens to produce the first serious split in the left-wing governing coalition. It is seen by Communist and radical Socialist members as a test of Mr Jospin’s willingness, or ability, to soften the market- oriented policies of the previous centre-right government.
It is also the first clear example of Mr Jospin stumbling over his pledge to keep his pre-election promises. The French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, faces a rough ride from his own supporters in parliament today after failing to reverse a decision by Renault to close a large car factory in Belgium.

That year, Mr Cardenas was running ahead of PRI candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari when the PRI-controlled Electoral Council announced that the computer system counting the votes had crashed When it came back up, Mr Salinas was ahead and won narrowly. Ballots were quickly burned before a recount could be made.Mr Zedillo has since presided over electoral reforms, including a more independent Electoral Council, but the opposition warn that PRI militants may resort to the traditional fraudulent tactics, particularly in rural areas, such as the “taco” vote – rolling up several previously-marked ballot slips to look like one.Another old PRI favourite was the use of the “dead man’s vote” when electoral registers included the names of dead people who voted – naturally – for the PRI New photo credentials should make that impossible.. He is expected to run for President of Mexico in 2000, when Mr Zedillo’s six-year term expires.Mr Cardenas’s surge in popularity in the capital and the poverty-stricken south is seen partly as a protest vote against the PRI, partly as a backlash from his unsuccessful run for the presidency in 1988. The left-of-centre opposition has never won a state.While a victory by Mr Cardenas in Mexico City would be historic, some analysts say the city vote is something of a sideshow. In recent years the party has gradually jettisoned segments of power but continued to reign over Mexico’s complex socio-political system through its patronising control over all sectors of society, from the police, military and judiciary to trade unions and peasant groups.Even a loss of its parliamentary majority would not rob the PRI of its control of “the system”, analysts say, although it would seriously handcuff the President in such areas as pushing through the budget, long the prerogative of the ruling party.To offset the fears of businessmen and investors, Mr Cardenas has played down his populist image and dropped his opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) with the US and Canada. But electoral reforms forced on former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and his successor Ernesto Zedillo have since allowed the PAN to grab four state governorships.