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  • Huge crowds march in France against youth jobs law

    Huge crowds march in France against youth jobs law
    By Matthew Bigg and Kerstin Gehmlich

    Reuters, UK
    March 18 2006

    PARIS (Reuters) - Huge crowds of students, trade unionists and
    left-wing politicians took to the streets across France on Saturday
    to press the conservative government to scrap a new law they fear
    will erode job security for young workers.

    Hundreds of thousands turned out in Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse,
    Rennes and over 150 other cities and towns in a growing protest
    movement that has created a serious crisis for Prime Minister Dominique
    de Villepin.

    The marches were mostly peaceful, but a few dozen youths overturned
    and set fire to a car at the end of the main protest in Paris and
    pelted police with missiles. Scattered violence was also reported in
    Marseille and Rennes.

    Organisers estimated the turnout nationwide at 1.3 to 1.4 million,
    with up to 400,000 of them in Paris. The Interior Ministry counted
    503,000 nationwide, with 80,000 in Paris.

    The protesters demanded that Villepin withdraw a new youth job
    contract, known as the CPE, which lets firms fire workers under 26
    without explanation in their first two years on the job. He launched
    it to spur reluctant employers to take on new staff.

    In the western city of Rennes, students wore plastic garbage bags
    with signs declaring: "I am disposable."

    "I risk working for two years for nothing, just to be fired at any
    moment," said Paris student Coralie Huvet, 20, who had "No to the CPE"
    written on her forehead. Pointing to painted-on tears, she added:
    "That's depressing, that's why I'm crying."

    Organisers, who decry the CPE as a "Kleenex contract" that lets young
    workers be "thrown away like a paper tissue," said they hoped to have
    up to 1.5 million people out marching in the third national protest
    in six weeks.

    The Paris march began with students in front and workers behind,
    but turned into a multi-generational mix including many parents who
    accompanied their teenage children. Banners declared "No to throw-away
    youths" and "Tired Of Being Squeezed Lemons."

    Opposition Socialist and Communist politicians also joined the protest,
    only the third time in almost four decades -- after 1968 and 1994 --
    that students and workers marched together.

    UNION LEADERS LOOK AHEAD

    Union leaders, due to meet after the march to discuss future strategy,
    threatened to keep up the pressure on the government with further
    action next week.

    "If they don't listen to us we are going to have to think about moving
    to a general strike across the whole country," said Bernard Thibault,
    head of the pro-Communist CGT union.

    "We can't hold back because the student movement will continue
    and there could be some risks," said teachers' union head Gerard
    Aschieri. "There should be a strike next week."

    Villepin, whose gamble on this unpopular contract could cost him his
    chance to run for president next year, has pledged not to give in to
    street pressure. At the same time, he hinted on Friday evening that
    he could make some adjustments to the law.

    Unemployment is the top political issue in France, where the national
    average is 9.6 percent and youth joblessness is double that. The rate
    rises to 40-50 percent in some of the poor suburbs hit by several
    weeks of youth rioting last autumn.

    In a bid to defuse the crisis, President Jacques Chirac said on Friday
    the government was "ready for dialogue" on the law that critics say
    must be withdrawn before any talks can start.

    But the government has little room for manoeuvre without making major
    concessions. An opinion poll published on Friday showed 68 percent of
    French people oppose the law, a rise of 13 percentage points in a week.

    The crisis has isolated Villepin politically at a time when his patron
    Chirac is himself badly weakened. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy,
    Villepin's main rival on the right, has stood back discreetly as the
    prime minister's troubles mount.

    His only consolation is that the opposition Socialists are so split
    that they hardly seem able to profit from the crisis.

    In an opinion poll to be published on Sunday, Villepin dropped six
    points to 37 percent popularity.

    Violence broke out in Lyon when a march of about 2,500 Turks protesting
    against a memorial to Armenian victims of a 1915 massacre in the then
    Ottoman Empire crossed paths with the anti-CPE demonstrations.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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