Protests Spur More Violence In France

(CBS/AP)  Thousands of demonstrators hurled pieces of concrete at police, who responded by filling a picturesque Paris square with tear gas Thursday after protest marches over a contested jobs law.

Amid the violence, unions and the prime minister agreed to meet for the first time in the standoff.

Villepin, facing escalating protests over the law, had invited the unions earlier in the day to no-holds-barred talks on the law. Five leading unions said they would meet him, but would refuse to negotiate unless the law was first withdrawn.

Villepin agreed to their terms for the meeting, and scheduled it for Friday.

CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk said that scheduling the talks appears to be Villepin's best option.

"With gendarmes lined up with riot gear in front of the National Assembly at the Palais-Bourbon in central Paris and violence breaking out at the student rally on Thursday, the new law is putting the government of Prime Minister Dominque de Villepin on the line," said Falk from Paris. "Negotiations with the unions to end the protests appear to be the next step to achieve the original goal of lowering youth unemployment."

The violence took place on Paris' verdant Esplanade des Invalides, with riot police using tear gas on rowdy protesters who threw grapefruit-sized chunks of concrete at police officers. Some of the 23,000 marchers turned on each other, beating and kicking.

Plumes of smoke billowed skyward as youths set trash bins on fire, and vandals smashed glass bus shelters and windows at several shops. A phalanx of hundreds of riot police, three men deep, pressed forward to drive back the protesters and blocked off the ornate Alexandre III bridge.

Dozens of people appeared injured, and police said 42 people had been arrested.

"The movement is destroying itself, we've turned upon each other," said Gael Ojardias, a 25-year-old cook at the Paris march, after watching demonstrators turn on a fellow marcher and beat him violently.

It was the latest in several protests in recent weeks over the law, which has thrown the government into a crisis and wreaked havoc at universities, many hit by strikes.

Police also used tear gas on protesters in Grenoble, where an officer was injured, and groups of youths clashed with police in Marseille. Some broke shop windows and damaged cars and bus stops in Paris and elsewhere.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page »