Massive protests erupt in France over new labor law

French students and unions took to the streets in Paris and other cities on Mar. 7 to protest against French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's new labor plan. As many as one million people marched in French cities including Marseille, Bordeaux, Rennes and Grenoble, with 200,000 protesting in Paris alone, according to the Confederation Gen-erale du Travail, France's largest union. About 160 marches were planned across the country. Students joined trade unions and civil servants to protest against a law de Villepin introduced to ostensibly fight youth unemployment. The new law, called "contrat premiere embauche," or CPE, lets companies fire workers under 26 within the first two years on a job with little notice or severance. Thirteen universities in Paris and major cities, including Aix en Provence, Bordeaux, Lille and Nantes, were on strike for over a week prior to the Mar. 7 protest. Students blockaded other universities and disrupted classes. "De Villepin is institutionalizing uncertainty in the labor market," said Yann Benhayoun, 25, who studies mathematics and computer science at Paris VII-Denis Diderot University and is a representative of UNEF student union. Police used tear gas to move protesters who filed onto station platforms and briefly paralyzed traffic in western Rennes, where organizers put the number of protesters at 20,000. Following approval of the legislation in the upper house of parliament on Mar. 9, police fired teargas outside Sorbonne university in Paris and at least 1,000 students formed a human chain around the Arc de Triomphe monument. Late in the evening a large number of police officers remained deployed around the Sorbonne to contain some 200 protesters massed in front of the main entrance. The face-off had begun in the early evening and tear gas was fired to quell the student crowd and supporters who were pressing officers against the university gates. Earlier there were several hundred protesters involved in the largely peaceful protest, shouting "scrap the CPE" and other slogans. Around 80 students had erected barriers inside the university to stop classes from taking place. Riot police stormed the university two days later, forcibly removing about 400 students that were still holed-up there. Police used teargas and batons to push the students to the exit. The students had attempted to confront the anti-riot police, forming a human chain and chanting "peaceful resistance." Amid scenes of panic some of the protesters had attempted to block the police advance by hurling tables and chairs at them. Emergency services arrived to offer first aid to one person lying on the pavement after the police action. Police had entered the Sorbonne building after a request from the chancellor of Paris Universities, Maurice Quenet, the police headquarters said. Police launched teargas shortly after coming under attack from students who hurled seemingly anything they could lay their hands on at the officers, including oil cans, fire extinguishers, step ladders, chairs and books from upper-story windows of the university block. Earlier in the day, police had used batons to beat some students at a road-block next to the Sorbonne in a scene reminiscent of the 1968 student riots that shook France and brought the government of the day to its knees. Paris's Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, said in a statement before police stormed the building that he was "deeply concerned" about the use of force against the student protest, which he said had been passing off peacefully. The overwhelmingly negative reaction to the CPE legislation is indicative of de Villepin's growing unpopularity. The prime minister has claimed that the new law was essential to fight youth unemployment. Critics say younger workers would have less job security than older colleagues and France's generous labor provisions would be undermined. The new legislation currently only applies to small firms but some fear it could be misused by larger employers and make it even harder for young people to find a permanent job. Some 23 percent of people under 26 years of age are unemployed in France, but the figure is more than 50 percent among the immigrant population.