Elsewhere, in the workers' cafés of Lille, opinions flared with more heat than decorum.
Beneath cracked portraits of Jaurès, men and women gathered in numbers not seen since the winter strikes.
Leaflets circulated with the headline.
National Worker Camps Funded! CCC-style Employment!
"I'll be damned," said Renaud, a laid-off machinist. "They're actually putting hands to labor."
His comrade Lucie raised an eyebrow. "Two billion for youth camps. Good, yes. But not enough. If we get twenty thousand posts, what happens to the next fifty thousand?"
"They're building something," offered Jeanne, who had worked in a now-closed textile plant. "We shouted for jobs. Now they say, 'Come and build roads, airfields.' That's not charity, that's work."
The conversation turned toward vocational schools and worker housing.
Some remained skeptical.
"We've heard promises before," muttered an older man, Henri. "Blum promised factories. We got slogans. Moreau better deliver bricks, not banners."
