Chirac backs French PM as protests flare up again

Youths throw barricades at French riot police outside the Sorbonne during a student demonstration. Picture / Reuters

BERLIN/PARIS - French President Jacques Chirac has offered "total and unreserved" support to his embattled prime minister, who faced new demonstrations against a youth job law protesters have vowed to defeat.

Hundreds of students, some banging drums and blowing whistles, gathered outside the Sorbonne University in Paris where riot police evicted sit-in students at the weekend.

The Sorbonne was the birthplace of a 1968 uprising that shook France.

"Villepin needs to recognise his error and resume negotiations," said Antoine Troussier, 18, one of thousands of students nationwide demanding Villepin withdraw his CPE "first job contract".

The protests have disrupted around half of France's 80-odd universities and have mushroomed into the biggest test of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's 10 months in office, prompting speculation about his future.

With more demonstrations scheduled on Thursday and Saturday, Chirac ended a long silence over protests and backed the youth jobs contract as "an important element" in the fight against youth unemployment.

"It goes without saying that I totally and unreservedly support the activities conducted by the prime minister and the French government," Chirac said at a news conference in Berlin after a joint session of the German and French cabinets.

Villepin, whose prospects for a 2007 presidential bid have been hurt by the youth contract furore, remained in Paris where he again defended his plan against a welter of hostile questions in parliament.

Protesters, trade unions and opposition politicians say the new contract makes it easier to fire young workers, while Villepin argues it encourage firms to hire and helps to cut youth unemployment from some 23 per cent.

"The CPE is a useful contract because it will create jobs for young people in difficulty," Villepin told parliament. "The CPE is fair and it is balanced."

Villepin's refusal to make substantive concessions has frustrated key ministers and undermined support among deputies of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).

Party boss Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister, told deputies they had to back the government but be "realistic about the political situation", deputies at the meeting told reporters.

Publicly, Sarkozy has backed Villepin but allowed close allies to subtly distance him from the plan by calling for changes.

Analysts say presidential hopeful Sarkozy is condemned to support his rival as a complete climbdown could prove fatal to the right's chances next year.

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.

"We are determined and confident. Mobilisation is getting stronger and stronger," Bruno Juillard, head of the UNEF students' union, which has spearheaded the protests, said.

Left-wing parliamentarians have asked the Constitutional Council to strike down the law.

Villepin's vague promise of talks on secondary issues, made during a Sunday television interview watched by some 11 million people, has only antagonised those demanding the CPE be axed.

National Assembly speaker Jean-Louis Debre, a Chirac stalwart and Villepin ally, said the text could be amended or modified but ruled out abandoning the measure outright.

- REUTERS