This year, as every year, the World Economic Forum gathered in Davos (Switzerland) bringing together "world leaders" - in the form of financiers, bankers, representatives of big business, top politicians - and sitting them down with the heads of the major international institutions which really run our planet : the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Their discussions this year have focused on the economic crisis in Asia and the ways in which its aftershock threatens even the world’s most powerful economies —Japan, the United States and the European Union.

The massive devaluation of Asia’s currencies will inevitably make Asian products more competitive on the European market and will correspondingly reduce demand for imports in the countries of Southeast Asia.

All the experts are predicting a fall in French sales in the region, particularly in sectors such as aeronautics, luxury goods and major construction projects.

Already dozens of orders have been cancelled. For instance, Indonesia’s Garuda airline has put off its planned purchase of three Airbus aircraft ; the building of a high-speed railway in South Korea has been shelved ; and a $660 million investment project by Daewoo, which was to have brought 1,400 jobs to Lorraine, has been postponed.

As a result of the cutback in exports to Southeast Asia, and the increase in imports from the region, it is expected that growth in France’s gross domestic product will be cut by 0.5%.

On top of this, there are the consequences of a likely fall in the value of the Japanese yen and the US dollar.

France’s minister for the economy had been looking for growth rates of around 3%, but the effects of the economic catastrophe in Asia are more likely to mean levels of around 2%.

In concrete terms, this means that, unless something changes, jobs are not going to be created in France ; in fact, jobs will continue to be destroyed on all fronts.

The inadequacies of an ultra-orthodox economic policy dictated by the constraints of transition to the euro - to which Prime Minister Jospin was converted in the immediate aftermath of his election —are by now patently obvious.

Alternative policies are required - more imaginative, and more geared to society’s real needs.

The present protests by the unemployed are a continuation of the protest movement of December 1995, reflecting, too, the anger of France’s other "outcasts", including immigrants and the homeless. They are indicative of the mood of impatience and frustration in a country in which poverty is on the increase.

France has something like six million people struggling to get by on the bare minimum, three million unemployed and another three million earning less than 5,000 francs (US$830) a month. That makes twelve million people affected by worsening economic conditions and loss of job security.

Lionel Jospin’s message to the unemployed and the semi- employed, to the poor and the marginalised, is that they will have to wait for the passing of the much-needed law on the introduction of the 35-hour week and the longer-term effects of his macroeconomic policies.

However, the truth is that the only real priority of his economic policy is adherence to the convergence criteria for joining the euro.

Support for a strong franc, reduction of the budget deficit to the required level of 3%, and the fight against inflation : these remain the real priorities of this "government of the broad left", just as they were for the governments of Messrs Balladur and Juppé before it.

Priorities which, over the past twenty years, across the European Union, have widened the gap between rich and poor and put 57 million people on the poverty line.

Faced with such a dire scenario, it is not hard to understand the protests of France’s disadvantaged.

Particularly when most companies have enjoyed sizeable profits in the course of 1997. France’s export industries alone have recorded profits of 160 billion francs (US$ 26 billion) and the Paris Stock Exchange has risen by 29.5%.

Since 1974, the world has grown richer but the numbers of people living in total poverty have escalated.

Production of consumer goods has risen by 70%, yet the numbers of the unemployed have risen seven-fold. Meanwhile, the proportion of wages as a share of companies’ increased value has continued to fall (a 9% decline since 1980), and the benefits of technological progress have gone to the privileged few, to the detriment of the majority of wage-earners.

The result has been growing social inequality. In France, the richest 5% of the population own 40% of the wealth, while 50%, the poorest, own barely 8%.

What has broken down is not the production of wealth, but any system of fairness in its distribution.

So the problem is not one of economics, but a problem of political will and notions of democracy.

Mr Jospin’s abandoning of monetary and budget-related tools of intervention - sacrificed on the altar of the euro at this critical time of social malaise - has left his government with no more than a managerial role.

It has prevented him from proposing imaginative initiatives to his European partners - for instance, an ambitious Europe-wide policy of public works, a huge reduction in working hours, the creation of jobs close to the home and substantial increases in basic welfare entitlements. As a matter of plain fairness, which would also increase domestic demand.

What is needed is some sign of political will, courage, and also humanity.

For, given the present scale of suffering, it is clear that humanity and social justice go hand in hand.