But they will now want more than Mr Jospin's usual lip-service to their environmental concerns.
In Strasbourg, a former Jospin minister was ousted from her power base by 41-year-old Fabienne Keller.
Or perhaps, it adds, Jospin simply said what he was thinking at that moment.
At some point, Mr Jospin and his fellow politicians will have to take big ones.
French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin said the failure of the talks should not be over-dramatised.
Mr Jospin defiantly argued that energy supply was a public service demanding special treatment.
So why have the gods, or at least Mr Jospin, suddenly smiled on him again?
Powell is due to meet both Jospin and French President Jacques Chirac while in France.
Whatever then happens, it is already plain that Mr Jospin is having to rejig his priorities.
In a trice Mr Jospin would no longer be his party's hero, but its scapegoat.
One more such scandal and Mr Chirac may yet be in tighter knots than Mr Jospin.
The political logic, therefore, is that this week's shuffle cannot be Mr Jospin's last.
Even France's Socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin, now praises America's success at creating jobs.
In France, Mr Jospin's government has watered down its proposals for a 35-hour week.
At first, the grey, austere Mr Jospin seemed scarcely more likely to warm the cockles.
And how is Mr Jospin to reconcile his post-election deeds with his pre-election words?
Mr Jospin has already lost a clever finance minister, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, to allegations of corruption.
The Socialist-led government of Lionel Jospin is too broad a coalition for dramatic initiatives.
That may show that Mr Jospin's caution is, indeed, the better part of valour.
Unemployment, the scourge of the previous government, hit its peak just as Mr Jospin took over.
In fact, Mr Jospin has sold a lot more state assets than his right-wing predecessor did.
Mr Jospin's ratings have fallen by more than 20 points since the end of July.
Yet by saying no to such things, Mr Jospin might look dowdily conservative and Euro-wimpish too.
In 1998, to fight unemployment, the Jospin administration simply put 350, 000 new government jobs on the books.
If the court rules against France, the law will probably have to change, whatever Mr Jospin says.
The quiet, dogged Mr Jospin could turn out to be the right man to help them through.
Mr Jospin was for years a Trotskyite, dedicated, like Genoa's extremists, to the overthrow of global capitalism.
ECONOMIST: Globalisation through French eyes: Putting the brakes on | The
Another example, broached with unaccustomed courage by Mr Jospin last year, may be the constitutional future of Corsica.
The fact that Mr Schrameck wrote and published this book with Mr Jospin's permission speaks poorly of both.
All of which explains why Mr Jospin is treating the shooters with as much care as the farm-workers.
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