Home > France : students clash with riot police

France : students clash with riot police

by Open-Publishing - Tuesday 14 March 2006
1 comment

Edito Un/Employment Demos-Actions School-University France

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.

Dominique de Villepin, a debonair former diplomat who made his name abroad with his impassioned 2003 United Nations speech against the Iraq invasion, showed no signs of bending to student and opposition demands that he abandon a hotly contested measure to combat youth unemployment.

The Education Ministry said 17 of France’s 84 state universities were strikebound, up from 14 on Monday and just eight last Friday, and that another 28 faced partial disruptions.

De Villepin’s political future and ability to enact further reforms ahead of next year’s presidential vote could hinge on how the political confrontation
plays out in the next few weeks. De Villepin, a Chirac protege, has staked his authority on bringing down France’s unemployment rate, still hovering at close to 10 per cent and more than double that among young adults.

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.

 http://www.eitb24.com/portal/eitb24...

Forum posts

  • student in europe make everywhere strikes in few days
    tous les etudiants europeens solidaires