French police used teargas and water cannon when violence
erupted as students turned up the heat on Prime Minister Dominique
de Villepin over a jobs law on Thursday, while his government
struggled to defuse the crisis.
Stone-throwing protesters clashed with police at the end of a
march by several thousand university and high school students in
Paris and later outside the Sorbonne university.
A kiosk and a car were set ablaze and several windows in shops
and cafes were smashed during the violence, which went on late into
the evening with scattered groups clashing with police in the Latin
Quarter. Police said 181 people were arrested.
Protests across France have gathered in momentum since hundreds
of thousands of protesters turned out on March 7 against the law,
which critics say reduces job protection for young people. The
protests have been largely peaceful so far.
Student leaders said 300,000 to 600,000 marched across France
and that 64 of the country's 84 universities were hit by the
protests. Officials reported 247,500 protesters nationwide.
"CRS = SS!" chanted protesters at the Sorbonne, comparing the
riot police to the leading Nazi troops. At least eight riot police
were injured in the unrest and several dozen youths, many of them
hooded or masked, were hauled away by police.
The protests could hurt the conservative Villepin's hopes of
running for president in 2007. He says the law will help reduce
unemployment among the young, now running at 22.8 percent, more
than twice the overall national rate.
Opinion polls show Villepin's popularity has tumbled during the
biggest test of his 10 months in office.
Street protests can make or break governments in France.
Protests in 1995 badly undermined the then conservative Prime
Minister Alain Juppe, who lost snap elections two years later.
More protests planned
Trade unions plan another action day on Saturday and hope to top
the one million protesters they estimated took part in the March 7
protests. Police estimates were half that figure.
Police fired teargas after 100 students briefly occupied a town
hall in the western city of Rennes on Thursday. Thousands of
students marched in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille and in
Bordeaux in the southwest.
In Paris, police in riot gear fired teargas at several dozen
youths pelting them with stones after the main march ended at a
square only a few blocks from Villepin's Matignon Palace
office.
Nearby boutiques and the elite Sciences Po university closed as
a precaution as the protests signaled hardening opposition to the
law, which allows employers to dismiss workers under 26 during a
two-year trial period without having to give a reason.
"Chirac, Villepin, Sarkozy, your trial period is up!" read one
banner in Paris, referring to President Jacques Chirac, his prime
minister and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
Student and union leaders have spurned an offer of talks over
the law from Villepin, who railroaded the measure through
parliament. They say he must back down.
"I am open to dialogue within the framework of the law and to
improve the First Job Contract," said Villepin. But he has vowed to
stand firm over the law because he believes in it.
With no end in sight to the standoff, ministers have offered
six-monthly reviews of the law in an effort to defuse tensions.
"Perhaps it isn't the best solution, perhaps we could improve
it, but at least we're moving forwards," Finance Minister Thierry
Breton said on RMC radio.
France's unemployment rate is one of the highest in Europe at
9.6 percent and more than twice that for under 25-year-olds. It
tops 40 percent in some run-down neighborhoods.
Surburban riots last year were widely blamed on high youth
unemployment in poor areas.
(Chinadaily.com via agencies March 17, 2006)
