France: Nicolas Sarkozy, France's interior minister, is adding to pressure on Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, to water down his unpopular labour law, fuelling tensions between the two centre-right rivals ahead of next year's presidential elections.
Mr Sarkozy, leader of the ruling UMP party, called for negotiations with unions on the controversial law, which has triggered violent street protests by students and workers. He also said the law should be reviewed after a six-month trial.
He said the crisis is increasing tensions in poor suburbs and risked causing a fresh bout of riots by immigrant youths similar to the wave of violence that swept France in November.
His comments in this week's Paris Match prompted rumours that Mr Sarkozy might quit the government earlier than expected to avoid being bruised by the battle between the government and "the street". He was expected to leave next January to campaign for the presidency.
A Le Parisien headline said yesterday: "Sarkozy ready to abandon Villepin."
Mr de Villepin's popularity has slumped since the public turned against his idea of loosening France's rigid labour law by allowing companies to fire people aged under 26 without the need for justification during a two-year trial period.
The prime minister has proposed several "improvements" to the contract. In a speech to parliament yesterday he said: "I want to move forward with social partners free of preconditions to engage together in all necessary discussions." But he has ruled out "withdrawal, suspension or denaturation". Unions have refused talks until the government ditches the law.
Mr Sarkozy is a leading proponent of a "rupture" - a break with the past - to modernise France's social model, but this idea is at risk of being discredited if the crisis deepens.
More student protests are planned today and nationwide strikes and demonstrations are planned for next Tuesday.
The interior minister denied he would quit in the midst of the crisis, saying: "Opportunism and tactics have nothing to do with such a decision. It will be a collective decision taken with the prime minister and the president."
Alluding to his disagreements with Mr de Villepin, Mr Sarkozy said: "I am different while remaining united. I have no more intention to mark this difference when things are going badly than when things are going well."
However, he criticised Mr de Villepin's handling of the crisis and his refusal to back down over the law. "If there has been a misunderstanding, it is because we have not had enough dialogue. We need to make up for lost time. We must not harden our position.
"I am convinced France is a country that accepts change and, contrary to what is said, it does not fear it. The big difficulty is not that change causes fear, but that change must be seen as fair," said Mr Sarkozy.
His advisers said he planned to give more details of his vision for reforming France in a speech to UMP members on Saturday and in another to the public in Douai on Monday.
France's business leaders see the new contract as a test of the government's willingness to reform the labour market, although many have expressed reservations over the lack of negotiation before it was introduced. Laurence Parisot, the head of the powerful employers' federation Medef, said yesterday that the current crisis marked "an important inflection point for France".
"We have to develop reforms which will introduce more flexibility," she said in a meeting with hundreds of Paris-based company bosses. But she voiced concerns that the controversy over the CPE could hinder this effort.
"For this reform to be accepted, it has to be equally shared. I am not sure that it is useful to direct all the effort of reform on a single category of the population," she said.
Yet she did offer muted support to Mr de Villepin. "I don't see only negative things in the CPE," she said. - (Financial Times service)