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French Workers Stage Fresh Strikes

PARIS (Reuters) - French transport workers and teachers staged new strikes on Tuesday and students across the country prepared to take to the streets for a protest they hope will sound the death knell for a youth hire-and-fire law.

France's ruling conservatives stopped short of agreeing to scrap the law but, faced with sliding poll ratings and internal rifts over how to deal with the crisis, signalled they could offer more concessions in possible talks with trade unions.

Opponents of the regulations want at least as many people to take to the streets as a week ago, when between one and three million protesters marched through French cities in the biggest demonstration the country has seen for decades.

"It's annoying that the railways go on strike over things that don't really concern them," fumed Farid Morsle, an estate agent from the northern Paris suburb of Pontoise who was late into the capital because his train had been cancelled.

Marie Wagner, a striking teacher from the eastern city of Strasbourg, said she had faced no transport problems. "I back the strike because I have children and job insecurity is a concern," she said.

Disruption from strikes was less than a week ago, with two high-speed trains out of three leaving Paris on time in the morning, and metro services in the capital barely hit. Public transport in northern cities, such as Lille, was untouched.

Air traffic was hit, with aviation authorities estimating around a third of flights had been cancelled and others delayed by up to 90 minutes. France's top oil refiner Total SA said strikes slightly reduced output at three out of six plants.

"We are perhaps on the verge of a great victory," far-left leader Olivier Besancenot told France 2 television.

"But the CPE is not dead yet," he added of the disputed First Job Contract (CPE), aimed at encouraging firms to take on young workers by giving them the right to summarily lay them off at any time during a two-year period.

Backers of the contract say it will free up the labour market by allowing employees to bypass French laws making it hard to lay off workers once on their books -- often cited by firms as a disincentive for taking on staff in the first place.

President Jacques Chirac has urged a softening of key parts of the legislation -- for example halving the maximum duration of the contract to a year -- and his conservatives signalled further possible climb-downs on the measure.

MASS POLICE PRESENCE

"We'll be ready as of tomorrow to receive the unions, to listen to them. There won't be any limits to the talks," promised Bernard Accoyer, parliamentary chief of Chirac's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party.

Asked on French radio if the offer of talks was merely a tactic to take the steam out of the protests, or whether the CPE could actually be replaced, he replied: "Let's not speak about the CPE because we want to talk about the future.

Unions have vowed to resist overtures for talks unless ruling conservatives pledged to scrap the CPE and start anew on ways to tackle chronic youth joblessness stuck at 22 percent.

A mass police presence, including some 4,000 in Paris, was being deployed to stop a re-run of violence on March 28, when police in the capital used tear gas on hundreds of youths who threw bottles and petrol bombs.

VILLEPIN WEAKENED?

Chirac's declaration on Friday that he would sign the CPE bill even as he called for amendments, was seen as a bid to stave off the risk that Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, a champion of the CPE and long-time Chirac ally, would resign.

But the move could weaken Villepin and boost the hand of Nicolas Sarkozy, interior minister and chief of Chirac's UMP who will now have a key role in any amendments and negotiations.

Sarkozy, whose relations with Chirac are strained, nurtures hopes of beating Villepin off to be the right's candidate for president in the 2007 elections.

Facing his third major crisis in a year -- after last May's referendum rejection of the European Union constitution and November's rioting in poor suburbs -- Chirac insisted late on Monday that his conservatives maintain "complete coherence".

But Le Figaro quoted a number of Sarkozy allies as calling for the scrapping of the CPE, a move which would leave question marks over Villepin's future.

A survey by pollsters BVA showed just 25 percent of the those questioned on April 1 approved his handling of the economy, five points down on a month before.

Source: MSN

By Anna Willard