The French government defended last night a new job law that has provoked mass protest marches and played down a union threat to call a general strike unless the law is withdrawn by tonight.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said the government would not back down over the law, an attempt to reduce youth unemployment which lets employers fire people under 26 for any reason during a two-year trial period.
Unemployment stands at 9.6 per cent nationwide and over 20 per cent for young people.
Opponents of the First Job Contract (CPE) law, including unions, student groups and left-wing parties, argue it is regressive and will create a generation of disposable French workers insecure about their future employment.
The law is an attempt to give young people experience of work and to tackle French employers' reluctance to take on new staff because of the high financial cost and the difficulty of sacking workers.
"I exclude any withdrawal of the CPE, which must be given a chance to work," de Villepin said in an interview yesterday with the monthly magazine Citato. He said he regretted misunderstandings over the law.
Dominique de Villepin
In a separate interview government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope played down the ultimatum. "Are we really in that kind of logic? Is that the most suitable word for the situation?" he said on LCI television.
Cope said the government was open to dialogue as a means of finding a way to improve aspects of the bill but gave no hint that it could be withdrawn or suspended.
The comments were likely to harden the position of student and union leaders who organised the protests on Saturday that they said brought 1.5 million people onto the streets in 160 towns across the country. Police reported 500,000 protesters.