France: Student protesters clash with riot police

Protests have turned violent in France as at least 250,000 people rallied against a controversial new labour law.

The worst violence was in Paris, where riot police fired rubber bullets and tear gas, and was reported in some of the other 80 cities holding rallies.

Protesters object to new two-year job contracts for under-26s which employers can break off without explanation.

President Jacques Chirac has appealed for talks, but says the new law is important to fight unemployment.

'Slave labour'

The march in Paris, which police said was attended by 30,000 but which organisers put at 120,000-strong, was mainly peaceful.

However, a group of about 300 masked protesters threw missiles at police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.

A newspaper stand and a number of cars were set on fire and protesters at the symbolic Sorbonne University - where street protests shook France in 1968 - pelted police with stones and bottles and chanted slogans comparing them to the Nazi SS.

Clashes went on into the evening and the interior ministry said there had been about 150 arrests in Paris, along with at least 50 more elsewhere.

Two officers and a student were slightly hurt in scuffles in the northern Paris suburb of Raincy.

Six people were arrested and two officers hurt in Vitry-sur-Seine, south-east of Paris.

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French students have clashed with riot police across the country, as hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marched against a new government youth employment plan.

At least 250,000 people took to the streets on Thursday in up to 80 towns and cities across France, according to police. Organisers put the figure as high as half a million.

Student leaders said 120,000 people marched through Paris's university quarter, although police said there were 30,000.

In Paris, a group of up to 300 masked protesters hurled missiles at police, who responded with tear gas and rubber pellets.

Eight officers were injured in the Paris violence and 10 were hurt elsewhere, police said.

Wave of protests

The planned First Employment Contract (CPE) allows employers to fire young people without reason in the first two years of their contracts in the hope this will encourage firms to be bolder in hiring.

Students say this discriminates against young people, and unions argue that firing employees without explanation is wrong in principle.

"You can't live with a knife at your throat," said 21-year-old film student Sophie Cojan, who joined the Paris protest.

Dominique de Villepin, the French prime minister, has championed the scheme as a key tool in fighting youth unemployment and is now facing the most serious test of his premiership as the wave of protests paralyses dozens of universities.

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March 16: Tens of thousands of students took to the streets today in cities all over France in renewed protests against a new labour law, the contrat de première embauche.

Passed earlier this month, the CPE is intended to reduce unemployment, but would allow employers to dismiss workers under the age of 26 who have been on their payroll for less then two years without giving a reason.

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Tempers flared again in Paris on Thursday, pitching riot police against students in yet more violent clashes.

Some youngsters had come in from the surrounding suburbs looking for trouble, and they found it on the streets of the Left Bank.

By the Sorbonne, in the intellectual heartland of France, a bookshop was set alight, with rioters smashing up a cafe and using the chairs as missiles against police.

Anything that came to hand, from street signs to rocks, was hurled at police officers, as police and youths, some of them masked, fought running battles in this latest stand-off.

Water cannon and tear gas dispersed some, for a little while. But soon they were back. Other youngsters taunted the police, who tried to stand firm behind their riot shields.

Elsewhere, police patience was at an end, as they dragged some protesters off by their feet. One policeman could be seen beating a fallen protester with his riot baton.

Government under pressure

By mid-evening, the area around the Sorbonne - France's elite university - had become a no-go area for anyone not involved in the fighting. But eventually, as midnight neared, the area calmed and cleared.

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