OUTRAGE AT 'QUALITY' ECSTASY PLAN

Jack Lang, the French education minister and star of Lionel Jospin's
cabinet, faced calls to resign yesterday after he suggested that cannabis
should be tolerated and backed steps to ensure that only good quality
ecstasy was sold in dance clubs.

Politicians and parents' groups were appalled at the idea of a senior
minister undermining the state's legal and educational drive against drug use.

Philippe de Villiers, co-leader of the conservative Rassemblement pour la
France, said Mr Lang's remarks were mind-boggling and called for the
minister's "immediate departure". During his nine years as culture minister
under the late President Mitterrand, the Parisian socialist Mr Lang courted
popularity and controversy with actions that included promoting gay rights
and giving state support to techno-music.

Mr Lang's remarks were provocative in his job as boss of France's vast
state education establishment. Mr Jospin brought the popular Mitterrand-era
celebrity into his government last February after crippling strikes by
teachers.

The minister, aged 60 and still the darling of the Paris showbiz world,
said he had smoked cannabis as a teenager "but without much enthusiasm".

France should stop discussing the drug in legal terms and hold a national
debate, he told the newspaper France-Soir. "We should put our cards on the
table, working with doctors and educators and not just over cannabis. We
should talk about tobacco and alcohol which are much more destructive among
the young."

On ecstasy, which is widely consumed in the booming night-scene of raves
and techno-clubs in Paris and the provinces, Mr Lang said he was
encouraging welfare organisations that were sending teams out to test the
quality of the drugs being sold.

This was too much for the Federation of Pupils' Parents, which accused Mr
Lang of breaching his duty to ensure the moral and civic education of the
young. "A drug is still a drug and none is without danger," it said.

The opposition UDF party said that Mr Lang appeared to be advocating
legalised ecstasy.