A LEADING member of France's ruling centre right coalition accused the French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, in unusually harsh language yesterday of duping voters by betraying campaign promises.
The former health minister, Ms Simone Veil, of the junior coalition partner, Union for French Democracy (UDF), said Mr Chirac made promises on issues including poverty and the homeless in last year's campaign.
"But we immediately went into a period of austerity. The French felt duped," she said in an interview on Radio Shalom.
"Today, the French sometimes feel that the statements and the measures were different. They don't always see the continuity and coherence in decisions," she added.
Ms Veil said that replacing the Gaullist Prime Minister, Mr Alain Juppe, would not have much impact. She called for an easing of the criteria for a single European currency.
Mr Juppe, who has been under fire for his government's austerity policies in face of a weak economy and high unemployment, has arranged a series of meetings to rally his fractious coalition.
The meetings follow close on the heels of a similar round of political fence mending by Mr Chirac in late July and early August.
There is widespread public gloom over near record unemployment and threatened unrest over plans to slash public deficits to help qualify for European monetary union from 1999.
The economy shrank 0.4 per cent in the second quarter compared with the first underlining the difficulty of cutting the budget deficit, data released yesterday showed.