Protesters reject Chirac's jobs plan

President Jacques Chirac's attempt to bob and weave his way out of a deepening crisis in France over a jobs law for the young appeared to have failed spectacularly on Apr. 1. In a televised address to the nation on Mar. 31, Chirac said he would ratify the "first job contract," designed to ease youth unemployment by allowing employers to sack young recruits without explanation during a two-year "trial period," but would make the government pass a new law removing most of its meaning. His contorted response to a four-week political and social crisis was dismissed on Apr. 1 by students and trade union leaders, as well as most of the French press, as an "April Fool's joke," a "confidence trick" and a "piece of failed DIY." Around 2,000 young people–some students, but many more far-left and anarchist activists–went on a six-hour protest march through the streets of central Paris after Chirac's speech. During the march, which ended in the early hours of Apr. 1, the demonstrators threw bottles at riot police and attempted briefly to storm the National Assembly. Some groups smashed the windows of two McDonald's outlets and sacked the offices of Pierre Lellouche, a Paris deputy for Chirac's center-right party, the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP). Even though President Chirac conceded ground on the two most contentious parts of the new youth contract, students and union leaders appeared determined to prolong the unrest. The dispute now threatens to lurch into a head-on confrontation between an enfeebled center-right government and president and a jubilant and–for the time being–united French left. The "contrat première embauche" (CPE, or first job contract) was intended to reduce France's youth unemployment rate of 23 percent. It was rammed through parliament by the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, who had warned that he would resign–plunging the center-right into crisis–if the president suspended or blocked the law. Chirac said on Mar. 31 that he would sign the law but, in effect, place it in abeyance. He would order the government immediately to prepare a new law, he went on, reducing the "trial period" to one year and obliging employers to explain their reasons for firing young workers. Although this would make the CPE all but useless, student groups and unions are now determined to humiliate the right and, if possible, bring down M. de Villepin. In an interview for publication on Apr. 2, he admitted "mistakes" and expressed regret for "misunderstanding and incomprehension." He denied being disavowed by Chirac, who has appealed to unions and students to take part in a national conference to consider other ways of promoting youth employment. Most union and student leaders said on Apr. 1 that they would not participate in such talks until the CPE was abolished, not just eviscerated. In other words, France faces a deepening political, social and educational crisis–with many universities and schools blocked and exams looming–over a law that has all but ceased to exist. M. de Villepin called an emergency meeting of chieftains of the center-right on Apr. 1 to plan the way forward. He faces an explosive battle in the National Assembly in the next few days to push through the new, weakened version of the youth contracts.