Is 2007 the last gasp for a lost generation? Seventy-six percent of French polled last year believed that today's young people have a much smaller "chance to succeed" than their parents did. The French press has dubbed the baby-boomers' children "les baby-losers." Hardly a month goes by without a bleak new book -- "How We Ruined Our Children," "Our Children Will Hate Us" -- lamenting a generation condemned to debt without the benefits their parents enjoyed on credit.

Youth unemployment stands over 20 percent. Young people biding their time in school or on temporary work contracts feel shut out while their elders enjoy uncommon job security in a society that rewards stability. Access to credit, savings, property, social welfare benefits, and even rental apartments is increasingly difficult for young people to obtain because France's golden ticket to employment stability, the permanent contract, is increasingly hard to get if you're under 30. The result is palpable disenchantment with a system that's clogged by gray hair. The average age of union representatives and elected officials has skyrocketed over the past 25 years. In 2002, only 15 percent of France's lower house was under 45, down from 38 percent in 1981.

Today's young people have put the nation's politicians on notice. In the spring of 2006, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced a youth jobs bill aimed at injecting flexibility into France's sclerotic labor market by allowing employers two-year trial periods for young workers. Millions of striking students poured into the streets for weeks of crippling protests. Their message was clear: they wanted not only jobs, but jobs as good and with as much security as those of their parents. After a protracted stand-off, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin was forced into a humiliating climb-down. The law never came into effect. But the good jobs the students wanted haven't been forthcoming either.

Earlier, in November 2005, rioting in the grimmest of France's suburbs saw police officers injured and thousands of cars burned in nightly rampages across the country. The three-week spree drew attention to the extremely high youth unemployment in the country's suburban housing projects where the poor - often immigrants and their descendants - feel they are left to operate outside the system.

Will France's soon-to-be lost generation be invited back into the fold in 2007? Candidates across the board are courting France's increasingly alienated young people, lest protest parties or abstention nab their votes. Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal have both promised interest-free loans for young entrepreneurs. Sarkozy has promised allowances of up to 300 euros a month to get young people on their feet. Royal, meanwhile, had one conservative critic accusing her of singing a lullaby to young people, infantilizing them as she promises new housing, guaranteed jobs or training after six months of unemployment, and even free contraception. But some of the courted youth themselves are wondering when debt-reduction and wholesale pension reform will earn a verse in their candidates' lullabies. If not, jobs or no jobs, they'll be left with the bill.

Photo o f 2006 protests by Eric Pape