Chirac urges union talks on French jobs plan

By Anna Willard

PARIS (Reuters) – French President Jacques Chirac urged
unions and students on Wednesday to take up his government’s
offer of talks on a youth jobs law that has sparked mass
protests around the country and rattled his prime minister.

Members of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP)
party have openly criticized the government for failing to talk
to unions about the new job contract, which opponents say
reduces job protection for young people.

Students and trades unions have demanded the government
scrap the law and left-wing lawmakers have mounted a legal
challenge, asking France’s top court to rule the measure
unconstitutional.

Chirac on Wednesday reaffirmed his support for Prime
Minister Dominique de Villepin, whose popularity has tumbled
during the biggest test of his 10 months in office.

“You are right to suggest opening the discussion and
broadening it to include our social partners,” Chirac told
Villepin at a cabinet meeting, according to government
spokesman Jean-Francois Cope.

“I hope this dialogue will start. And I trust the social
partners will engage in a constructive and responsible way.”

Unions and students say the law, which will allow companies
to hire young workers for a two-year trial period before taking
them on, will let companies fire them at will.

Villepin has been the driving force behind the contract,
which he says will bring down youth joblessness that was seen
as a cause of riots in poor suburbs last year. Unemployment
among under 25-year-olds is twice the national rate at 22.8
percent.

The prime minister has summoned ministers to a crisis
meeting for later on Wednesday and Interior Minister Nicolas
Sarkozy met police chiefs to discuss how to cope with any
violence, notably at major demonstrations planned for Thursday
and Saturday.

Nine police officers were hurt on Tuesday in clashes with
protesters in Paris.

UNIONS IGNORED

Around two-thirds of universities in France have been
disrupted by the protests and school pupils have also mobilized
in support of demands the jobs law be withdrawn.

Demonstrations are watched nervously by governments in
France because street protests in 1995 are widely seen as
having been responsible for the defeat of conservative Prime
Minister Alain Juppe in snap elections two years later.

Opposition parties have taunted Villepin about splits
within the government over the law, highlighting unhappiness
among UMP deputies over the prime minister’s handling of the
law.

UMP party boss Sarkozy, Villepin’s rival for the right’s
nomination to contest the presidency next year, has backed the
prime minister in public but close allies have subtly distanced
him from the youth employment measure.

“The social partners have been ignored,” Francois Fillon, a
Sarkozy ally and former education minister told Les Echos
newspaper, adding this would make it harder to resume
discussions with them about ending the action.

But he said the government should not back down.

“Reversing on the CPE would eventually have very negative
political consequences,” he said.

Analysts say Sarkozy has to support his rival because a
government climbdown would damage the entire right ahead of
2007 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Opposition parties, in an unusual display of unity, issued
a joint statement supporting the protests and demanding
Villepin ditch the contract.

Left-wing deputies tried to leave a stormy ministers’
question time in parliament after government spokesman Cope
rebuked them for failure to propose alternatives to the jobs
plan. National Assembly stewards prevented them from leaving.