French unions call new strike over jobs law

PARIS - French unions have called for a fresh one-day strike, stepping up pressure on Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin the day after millions marched to demand he abandon a contentious youth job contract.

Villepin again refused to withdraw the measure but said he was open to improving it and urged his critics to await a court ruling expected on Thursday. The Constitutional Council will either support the law, say it violates the constitution or express reservations about it.

Unions urged President Jacques Chirac in a letter to use his constitutional powers to send back to parliament for revision an equal opportunities law that could then be gutted of the CPE first job contract measures.

"The prime minister's rigidity only reinforces the union's determination to take further action," the UNSA union said in a statement announcing an April 4 national strike.

The contract allows companies to fire under 26-year-olds easily during a 2-year trial period, a measure opponents say will create a generation of disposable workers. Villepin says it will help reduce youth unemployment of close to 23 per cent.

Protests over the measure have disrupted studies and exams at the bulk of France's 84 universities and the government on Wednesday ordered head teachers of schools still blockaded by protestors to force them open, if necessary with police help.

Unions say 3 million people took part in yesterday's marches, three times the police estimate, upping the ante on Villepin and fuelling speculation about his future.

A government spokesman brushed off suggestions Villepin could step down if Chirac's support for the job law wavered and an uncharacteristic verbal gaffe by Villepin highlighted the pressure the sometime poet and former foreign minister is under.

"Let's wait for the Constitutional Council which will make it's resignation tomorrow," he said during government questions in parliament, using the wrong word by mistake and provoking jeers from the opposition.

Although he quickly covered his slip by replacing the French word "demission", which means resignation, with "decision", commentators rushed to ask why the word was on the tip of his tongue.

Political analysts expect the council to express reservations about the law.

This would give Chirac the opportunity to send it back to parliament for revision or ignore the reservations if they are not very strong and sign the measures into law.

Aides said the president, who canceled a trip to Le Havre planned for today to stay in Paris and monitor the crisis, would speak out in the coming days.

Opposition lawmakers have been calling on him to bring his prime minister to reason and avoid unrest, after violence by youths on the sidelines of some anti-CPE marches led to scenes reminiscent of last autumn's riots in poor French suburbs.

Almost 800 people were arrested yesterday in sporadic violence, notably in Paris, where police used tear gas and water cannons to quell unrest.

Commentators say the tidal wave of protest has left Villepin's future in the balance and a climbdown now could sink his hopes of running in next year's presidential election.

A new poll due out this weekend will show Villepin's support slumping 16 points among UMP voters and his approval rating at just 29 per cent, the daily Le Parisien said.

Asked if Villepin would resign if Chirac suspended application of the CPE, government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope told France Inter radio: "I have not raised that question with him at all and I've not even heard it raised."

Villepin is also under intense pressure from Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has urged his likely rival for 2007 presidential elections to compromise over a measure that has deeply split the ruling conservatives.

"In 2006, when there is a misunderstanding, you have to make a compromise. There is no shame. It is not a swearword. A real negotiation should take place without preconditions," Sarkozy told Le Parisien.

- REUTERS