French protesters look for another million-person march

French protesters, declaring themselves on the brink of victory, hoped today to rally at least a million people for nationwide marches and strikes against a law – aimed at stemming joblessness – that has plunged the country into crisis.

The new demonstrations planned for tomorrow come after unions and student groups rejected President Jacques Chirac’s bid to soften the blow of the jobs law that would make it easier to fire young workers. Opponents want the law repealed, not watered down.

“We are on the edge of victory,” said Bruno Julliard, head of a leading students’ union, on France Inter radio. Dismissing talk that students’ upcoming spring holiday could deflate the protest movement, he said: “The determination of youth is at a high level.”

Embattled Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin convened his government today for a big-picture look at France’s stagnant job market and soaring youth unemployment. Villepin, who devised the law and has been devastated by the fury against it, sought to show that he is still in charge of a government increasingly threatened with fracture over the measure.

The head of the CGT union, Bernard Thibault, said on RMC radio that he hoped for “the strongest possible” turnout tomorrow. Unions expect the protests to match a similar action last week that brought at least 1 million people to the streets.

Flights in and out of Paris’ Orly airport were delayed already today as the civil aviation authority prepared for disruptions because of tomorrow’s strike.

Protesters planned a sit-in today at the elite Sorbonne university, which has been shuttered for weeks and saw bloody clashes between students and police last month over the jobs law.

The uproar is over the “new job contract” that Villepin championed as a way to boost hiring of young people by easing the rules for firing workers under 26 in their first two years on a job. Proponents say it will help push France into the global economy; opponents say it will erode the country’s hallmark worker protections.

Protests have mounted from week to week since it was introduced in January, and hundreds of universities and high schools have been closed or blocked by protesters.

Chirac signed the law yesterday – but urged that it not be applied until a new, softer version is devised with two key modifications that take opponents’ concerns into account. Protesters said the modifications weren’t enough.

Thibault and Julliard said talks were possible between unions and student groups and lawmakers from the ruling UMP party – but reiterated their insistence that the contract be repealed, and said any talks would not be about improving the contract but about jobs in general.

More than half of French people were unconvinced by Chirac’s efforts to soften the law, according to a poll released Monday. Just 23% found it convincing, according to the poll of 951 adults nationwide conducted by telephone for Le Monde and France-2 television. The poll gave no margin of error.

Seventy-one percent said Chirac’s decision to sign the law would radicalise the protest movement. Fifty-nine percent of those polled remain opposed to the contract, down only slightly since last week.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has offered to broker talks with unions, was to host a meeting of the UMP party tonight. Sarkozy hopes to be the UMP’s presidential candidate in next year’s elections and is the only government official to come out on top amid the crisis.