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Students clash with riot police protesting first job contract

Dominique de Villepin showed no signs of bending to student and opposition demands that he abandon a hotly contested measure to combat youth unemployment.

Hundreds of students clashed with riot police near the Sorbonne University in Paris on Tuesday. The student protests were presenting French President Jacques Chirac’s supposed preferred successor with one of his sternest tests yet in his nine-month tenure as prime minister.

Masked demonstrators hurled bottles, stones and sections of metal fence at riot police who responded with jets of tear gas again on Tuesday next to the Sorbonne University in Paris. Critics warned that street protests could get out of hand without a government concession.

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His "first job contract," made law last week, will make it easier for employers to fire workers aged under 26, a new flexibility the government says will spur companies to hire thousands of young employees.

Although ministers recognise that the contract’s loosening of French labour laws is causing concern, they also argue that France, like other European nations, must reform to compete against rising powers like China, where labour costs are far lower and protections for workers sparse.

Critics on the left, conscious that the issue could swing support their way and undermine de Villepin ahead of the 2007 presidential and legislative races, say the new contract will provide less job security for youths and erode France’s generous labour protections.

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We’ve also made strong links with the teaching staff. They came to our general assembly to tell us they agreed with the strike and picket, and that we would learn more from the experience of organising an occupation than we would sitting in lectures!

This movement is really growing. There are 82 universities in France and 60 have joined the national coordination committee against the CPE youth employment laws.

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