FRANCE: Up to three million people demonstrated across France against the First Job Contract or CPE yesterday, a turnout which equalled or surpassed the record show of force on March 28th.
Last week's demonstration led President Jacques Chirac to reduce the trial period in the youth job contract from two years to one, and to require employers to provide a reason for firing.
But Mr Chirac's compromise has not appeased opponents of the CPE, who marched for the fifth time yesterday. A general strike was less widely observed, however, with two in three Paris metro trains and three in four high-speed trains running. Air traffic was disrupted. Passengers at Orly and Marseilles were delayed up to an hour, while some 30 flights were cancelled at Lyons.
The Paris demonstration ended with protesters pouring into the Place de l'Italie, where young vandals from the banlieues (suburbs) waited for their ritual clash with riot police. Expecting trouble, shopkeepers and restaurant owners had pulled down metal shutters and gone home.
Everyone was waiting for a fight. Television vans, many of them belonging to US and British networks, congregated in the Boulevard Auguste Blanqui. Some rented balconies overlooking the square.
I struck up a conversation with six young men from Sarcelles, an immigrant suburb north of Paris. Jean (18), the only white Frenchman in the group of Africans and Arabs, said he'd come to the demonstration "because we're fed up. They've forgotten about the youths in the banlieue. That's why we come here - to screw France, not against the CPE." Two of Jean's fingers were broken in the March 28th demonstration, when he fell during clashes with the CRS riot police on the Place de la République and a policeman stepped on his hand. Despite a splint and plaster, Jean was preparing for the cat-and-mouse game of throwing stones and bottles at policemen.
Jean deferred repeatedly to Djamel (21), obviously the group's leader. Wearing a bandana tight over his head and wrap-around sunglasses, Djamel surveyed the crowded square. "This'll end up with a free-for-all," he predicted. "I'm just here to encourage the youths." "They've already searched us four times," Jean complained. "They usually let me through, because I'm white, but they always get him because he's Arab." Last November's riots were "the first episode", Djamel said. Now he's enjoying the second. A loud noise sounded from across the square, where the casseurs (vandals) were starting their showdown with the CRS. Jean wrapped a scarf around his face and nodded in the direction of the town hall. "It's starting," he said. "I'm going to work." A photographer was injured in the subsequent clashes, and 206 youths were arrested.
As the gang from Sarcelles ran towards the riot police, an unemployed man named Gilles Loiseau (44) introduced himself as a supporter of the Communist Revolutionary League.
Mr Loiseau had inscribed the word "de" on his vinyl jacket with a marker. "De Villepin [the prime minister] and de Robien [the education minister] are aristocrats," he explained. "We had a revolution in this country to get rid of them." Mr Loiseau was glad that Mr Chirac stopped short of rescinding the CPE, because the demonstrations would have ended. "I want the whole place to blow up," he explained.
Cécille Dargaud (23) sat on the lawn in the centre of the square with two friends. Her campus at Nanterre has been shut down by student demonstrators for the past six weeks, but Ms Dargaud is not worried at the prospect of losing a whole academic year. "It would be a shame to start courses again after all these weeks without getting the CPE cancelled," she said. The archaeology student stays in touch with her supervisor by email.
Gilles Saint-Pierre (30) is a maths researcher on a short-term contract. "They constantly ask people like us to make more sacrifices, without offering anything in return. . . There comes a point when a government must have popular support or it's no longer legitimate."
For the first time in two months, a European trade union leader, the Briton John Monks, yesterday joined in the Paris march. Mr Monks said he wanted "to show solidarity" with his French colleagues, and called for demonstrations in front of French embassies throughout the EU.
Meanwhile, there is political confusion as responsibility for the CPE shifts from prime minister Dominique de Villepin to interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy. Mr Sarkozy has asked the head of the UMP's parliamentary group, Bernard Accoyer, to begin negotiating with the unions today.
"You're at Matignon [the prime minister's office], but you no longer govern," the leader of the Socialist group in the National Assembly, Jean-Marc Ayrault, told Mr de Villepin during questions to the government. "This is a crisis of regime," Mr Ayrault added.