France CPE Riot Watch: French Police Subdue Riots

Riot policemen await orders next to the Notre Dame Cathedral, following a students’ protest against the First Job Contract in Paris, France Saturday, March 18, 2006. Tens of thousands of students and workers marched in Paris and other French cities Saturday in what appeared to be the biggest show of anger yet at a jobs plan that has led to violence in the streets and threatens to weaken the government.

ASSociated Press:French Police Subdue Riots Over Jobs Law

Police loosed water cannons and tear gas on rioting students and activists rampaged through a McDonald’s and attacked store fronts in the capital Saturday as demonstrations against a plan to relax job protections spread in a widening arc across France.

Firefighters try to extinguished a car set ablazed by demonstrator in Paris at the end of a demonstration against a contested new labor law. Riot police teargassed scores of demonstrators in Paris after an estimated million people took to the streets of France to protest a widely unpopular new labor law.

The protests, which drew 500,000 people in some 160 cities across the country, were the biggest show yet of escalating anger that is testing the strength of the conservative government before elections next year.

At the close of a march in Paris that drew a crowd of tens of thousands, seven officers and 17 protesters were injured during two melees, at the Place de la Nation in eastern Paris and the Sorbonne University. Police said they arrested 156 people in the French capital.

Four cars were set afire, police said, and a McDonald’s restaurant was attacked along with store fronts at the close of the march.

Tensions escalated later Saturday as about 500 youths moved on to the Sorbonne, trying to break through tall metal blockades erected after police stormed the Paris landmark a week ago to dislodge occupying students. The university has become a symbol of the protest.

Police turned water cannons on the protesters at the Sorbonne and were seen throwing youths to the ground, hitting them and dragging them into vans.

“Liberate the Sorbonne!” some protesters shouted. “Police everywhere, justice nowhere.”

Demonstrator clash with riot policemen in Paris at the end of a rally against a contested new labor law. Riot police teargassed scores of demonstrators in Paris.

Protest organizers urged President Jacques Chirac on Saturday to prevent the law from taking effect as expected in April.

The group issued an ultimatum, saying it expects an answer by Monday, when leaders will decide whether to continue protests that have paralyzed at least 16 universities and dominated political discourse for weeks.”We give them two days to see if they understand the message we’ve sent,” said Rene Jouan of CFDT, France’s largest union.

This is a concerted effort of LEFTIE UNIONS to undermine the authority of the French government of President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. In response to the November riots, the French center-right goverment has attempted to reduce unemployment that stands at 23 percent nationwide, and 50 percent among impoverished young people. The lack of work was blamed in part for the riots that shook France’s depressed suburbs during the fall.

The law would allow businesses to fire young workers in the first two years on a job without giving a reason, removing them from protections that restrict layoffs of regular employees.

Companies are often reluctant to add employees because it is hard to let them go if business conditions worsen. Students see a subtext in the new law: make it easier to hire and fire to help France compete in a globalizing world economy.

On Friday night, a group of university presidents met with Villepin and called on him to withdraw the jobs plan for six months to allow for debate.

Failure to resolve the crisis could sorely compromise Villepin, who is believed to be Chirac’s choice as his party’s candidate in next year’s presidential election.

Villepin should restore order and hold firm on his employment plan. But, what else is he doing about the immigration “problem?”

Stay tuned…….