French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin was set yesterday to try to defuse student anger after police stormed the Sorbonne university with tear gas to smash a protest against a controversial new labor law.
De Villepin was scheduled to make a special television appearance in a bid for dialogue at a moment when protest against the proposals threatened to take on even more radical forms.
He appears determined to implement the measures despite the protest, although it was thought he might introduce some modifications to placate critics. The unions have been demanding that the entire scheme be dropped.
The government project aims to reduce high youth unemployment by introducing short contracts which would make it easier to hire and fire, thus encouraging employers to take on more staff.
But unions and students see in this simply a threat to job security by making it easier to sack young people.
Hundreds of students occupied the Sorbonne on Friday until the early hours of Saturday when riot police cleared the building, hustling out some 400 activists.
Meanwhile the Left kept up pressure on the right of center government to withdraw its controversial project, although the National Assembly voted it through on Thursday.
French opposition Socialist leader Francois Hollande called on de Villepin to open negotiations rather than show obstinacy, and warned against the risk of what he called a severe and lasting conflict.
Francois Bayrou, head of the centre-right UDF party, joined Socialists in calling on the prime minister to make a gesture of conciliation by suspending implementation of the new labor law.
But despite the pressure, de Villepin gave no sign of withdrawing this key piece of legislation by his government to cure the long-term ailment of high unemployment, dogging the French economy and contributing to such developments as last autumn's ethnic unrest.
Yet opinion polls show a majority of the French against the new measures, which the government insists will help to reduce the 23 percent level of unemployment among under-25s.
Aides said the prime minister would instead appear on television to clarify government policy by stressing measures accompanying the new law.
The disputed new strategy, known as the First Employment Contract (CPE), aims to make the labor market more flexible with a two-year contract for under 26 year-olds which employers can break at any time without explanation.
French Labor Minister Jean-Louis Borloo has already suggested easing matters by giving additional rights to young adults, for example in terms of training and accommodation.
In a coming week that could prove crucial to the government, students and high school pupils will rally on Thursday, to be followed on Saturday by a day of action linking students, unions and workers.
Education Minister Gilles de Robien told France Info radio on Saturday that the police action was a good thing and the students had got what they deserved from the police for the damage they caused to the university during their three-day protest.
In the meantime, protests continued at other French universities over the weekend including sit-ins at Toulouse, Caen, Tours, Grenoble, Dijon, Lille and Montpellier.
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