French unions threaten general strike as massive protests continue

Following a weekend of massive demonstrations and scattered street battles, the French government faces the prospect of a prolonged social crisis unless it suspends its new youth employment law. Trade union leaders have issued calls for a general strike unless French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin withdraws his "easy hire, easy fire" law for workers under 26 years of age. As many as 1.5 million students and workers joined largely peaceful marches against the law in 160 towns and cities on Mar. 18. Many parents accompanied their children at the demonstrations, where banners declared "No to throw-away youths" and "Tired of being squeezed lemons." Demonstrators in Paris had marched under a clear, blue sky, chanting "No to the Kleenex contract," arguing that the law would allow employers to discard workers like used tissue paper. "I'm sick and tired of all these phony contracts and I want to protect my children's future," said Carole Cases, a 43-year-old nurse, with two of her children, from the Paris suburb of Noisy-le-Grand. "They're trying to dupe the young." There is little indication that the law is welcomed by unemployed youth in the suburbs of Paris, who are also worried that it does not provide any long-term job security. "There's going to be more unemployment," said Mariam Sidibe, a 17-year-old student of Malian descent from Les Mureaux, a working class suburb of Paris rocked by last fall's riots, who marched in Paris. Running street battles went on for six hours in Paris after the demonstrations ended. The main boulevard of Paris's Latin Quarter was thick with tear gas as riot police moved to stop hundreds of students from breaking down police barricades and retaking control of the Sorbonne University building they had occupied days before. Bands of students, with their faces wrapped in scarves and with lemon slices over their mouths to counteract the tear gas, had marched to the Sorbonne and charged the police lines. Students removed some of the barriers erected by police and threw a fire bomb at a police van, but the fire was quickly extinguished. The students were repelled by the police with water cannons and were quickly overwhelmed. Police made 167 arrests and more than 100 people were injured. Clashes also erupted in other cities, including the port of Marseille, where demonstrators tried to set fire to the entrance to the town hall. The police used tear gas to disperse protesters who replaced the tricolor French flag at city hall with a black and red banner reading, "Anti-capitalism and self-management." One officer was injured and six youths were arrested, police said. In the city of Nancy, about 200 youths blocked railroad tracks for an hour, throwing rocks at the police, who used tear gas against them. In Rennes, protesters blocked a railway line for about an hour. The police used tear gas to disperse protesters who attacked the local office of the governing UMP party. French youths in the city of Lyon protesting the new labor law clashed with Turks demonstrating against the construction of a memorial to Armenian victims of a 1915 massacre. The youths shouted, "Fascists!" and "Go home!" The two sides threw objects at each other and engaged in scuffles. The police used water cannons to disperse them. A number of public figures joined the protests, including the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe; the Socialist party leader, François Hollande; a former culture minister, Jack Lang; and the Communist Party leader, Marie-George Buffet. Two hundred different protests were also held throughout France on Mar. 16, a day which ended in violence and arrests. At the Sorbonne University, police fired water cannons and tear gas at youths who threw stones and set cars on fire. The police also used water cannons against protesters who had set fire to a bookstore and destroyed the terrace of a cafe in the square in front of the Sorbonne. Police put the number of demonstrators on the streets at 247,000, though organizers said that half a million had turned out. Apart from Paris there were sizable protests in the cities of Nancy, Bordeaux, Marseille, Rennes, Toulouse and Clemont-Ferrand. At least 61 of France's 84 universities went on strike. A total of 92 police and 18 protesters were injured in Paris and 272 people were arrested nationwide during the Mar. 16 demonstrations, according to the Interior Ministry. Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister, said of the demonstrators: "These were not demonstrators; these were thugs. We arrest them and we punish them." But de Villepin, who has described himself as a "man of action" who would not cave in to street demonstrations, has been conspicuously silent as his ratings in opinion polls plunged. The protests initially began with an attempt by de Villepin to solve France's chronic youth unemployment by making it easier for employers to hire, and also fire, young workers. His First Employment Contract allows an employer to hire young people under 26 and fire them without specific reason, at any time in the first two years. The new law is aimed mostly at under-qualified young people in poor suburbs where youth unemployment can reach 70 percent. This was intended as a partial response to the five weeks of rioting by youth gangs in the suburbs in October and November of last year. The law is seen by its opponents as a step toward eroding long-cherished employment rights and benefits. Protesters point out that the law was pushed through Parliament without debate and charge that it is age discrimination. Unions have tied any talks with the government to withdrawal of the employment law, which is opposed by 68 percent of the French public, according to an opinion poll published in Le Parisien newspaper on Mar. 17, a rise of 13 percentage points in a week.