Standoff Continues Over French Jobs

President Jacques Chirac and French business leaders offered support to the country's embattled prime minister Monday as labor unions and students dug in against the government's contested youth jobs law.

Labor unions set a Monday evening deadline for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to withdraw the "first jobs contract" or face a possible general strike — but he showed few signs of backing down.

The law, passed by parliament this month, is designed to reduce youth unemployment by making it easier for companies to hire and fire. But critics fear it will hurt job security — and have led huge protests and clashes in recent days to demand the government abandon the plan.

Chirac acknowledged that "questions and worries" about the law were legitimate, but said high youth unemployment in France required action and made a new appeal for talks between opponents and the government.

"The stakes in the next few days are to open a constructive and conscientious dialogue that could improve" the law, he told reporters after a Paris meeting with Jordanian King Abdullah II. Chirac must sign the law for it to take effect as expected next month.

The debate looms large in the run-up to French presidential and legislative elections next year. Polls show the popularity rating of the conservative Villepin taking a beating, and the opposition Socialists have vowed to revoke the measure if they return to power.

Villepin also drew support from business leaders, who had long called for changes to France's labor market but have been conspicuously quiet during much of the restive debate.

"We're just in one of those psychodramas that the French love but that is not justified," Claude Bebear, chairman of insurance giant Axa, said after joining about two dozen other business leaders at a meeting with Villepin over the jobs contract.

Villepin, on the offensive, was also planning meetings with unemployed youths and students on Monday. He asked Economy Minister Thierry Breton to suspend a trip to the northern city of Lille that had been planned for Monday to help handle the situation.

Meanwhile, several top unions were meeting in Paris late Monday to decide whether to call for a general strike, which would mark a major escalation in the protest — and would tie up many public services.

The largest student union, UNEF, rejected an invitation to meet with Education Minister Gilles de Robien on Monday, demanding that the government withdraw the law before talks begin.

"They (the government) imposed the jobs plan without consulting anyone," UNEF leader Bruno Julliard told The Associated Press by phone. "They only agree to talks when a million people go into the streets to demonstrate so we refuse to talk to them until they withdraw it."

Opponents were riding a swell of protest against the contract, culminating in marches across France on Saturday that drew at least a half-million people. Organizers said 1.5 million took part.

The largest march, in Paris, ended in violence and skirmishes between youths and police in eastern Paris, and on the Left Bank at the famed Sorbonne university. Cars, bus shelters and 10 shops were damaged — including a McDonald's restaurant and a clothing store.

Police said Sunday that 52 people were injured — 18 of them demonstrators, including one hospitalized with a heart problem. A total of 167 people were arrested.

The unrest continued in pockets on Monday. At least 300 students hurled stones and set garbage bins on fire at Louis Armand high school in southern Paris, principal Jean-Armel Le Gall said. No injuries were reported, and the violence ebbed by midday.

Sixteen universities are on strike over the plan — with students blockading entrances with classroom chairs and tables — and classes at dozens of others have been disrupted.

The jobs contract, passed March 9 by parliament, is designed to increase employment among workers under age 26. Critics say it would chip away at workers' rights and endanger job security.

Two polls released Sunday showed that 60 percent of respondents believe the government should scrap the measure. Opponents have offered few high-profile alternatives as ideas to help reduce high unemployment rate among young workers in France.

The contract is meant to encourage employers to hire, by easing workplace rigidities and allowing them to fire young workers during the first two years of employment without giving a reason.

France's work code contains rigorous standards for firing employees. The new plan skirts these, but Villepin hopes it will lower the 23 percent unemployment rate among the nation's youths — a figure that rises to some 50 percent in some depressed suburban neighborhoods where a wave of unrest and rioting erupted across France last fall.

By Christine Ollivier