France faces strike threat
Student and employee unions have given Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin until tonight to withdraw the measure designed to increase job hirings among the young but seen by critics as an erosion of workers’ rights that will not produce solid employment.
“If these dynamics continue, I think we will quickly get the withdrawal” of the measure, Bernard Thibault, head of the powerful CGT union, said on France-Inter radio. “If the government persists, we can envisage working together toward a national strike day.”
Protesters have urged President Jacques Chirac to block the new law, expected to take effect in April. Already, 16 universities are on strike over the measure.
Police said that 52 people were injured - 18 of them demonstrators - in violence that followed the Paris protests on Saturday.
A total of 167 people were arrested, with 70 of them detained for questioning, police said. Cars and bus shelters were damaged in violence along with 10 shops, including a McDonald’s restaurant and the entrance to a Gap clothing store.
On Saturday night, more than 700 students rallied outside Paris City Hall to express their resentment with the protests that have disrupted their universities.
“When youths take to the street, you don’t know what can happen ... ,” said the spokesman for the opposition Socialist Party, Julien Dray. He said the government should withdraw the new law.
Organisers of the nationwide protests put the number of participants at 1.5 million. Police said a half-million people took part. The second demonstrations in three days, they were the biggest show yet of the country’s escalating anger over the new law.
The so-called First Jobs Contract, intended for those under 26 years of age, is meant to encourage employers to hire because they can more easily fire. The law allows for dismissal within the first two years of employment without justification.
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