FRANCE: Protesters against the now defunct First Job Contract (CPE) tried to stage a last stand yesterday, but demonstrations in Paris, Rennes and Marseille mustered fewer than 1,000 students each, just one week after up to three million participated in marches throughout France.
Die-hard protesters want the entire law on equal opportunity - not just Article 8, which created the short-lived CPE - withdrawn. And they want the end of the CNE, the CPE's "big brother", which created a two-year trial period in businesses employing fewer than 20 people.
As a last-gasp effort, students blocked a bus depot in Toulouse before dawn, briefly invaded the tarmac of Nantes airport and set up a barricade on the road to Rouen. Meanwhile, four French universities remained shut.
The draft law replacing the CPE with an umpteenth government make-jobs scheme was to be presented to the National Assembly last night. It should be voted on by the Assembly tomorrow and will go before the Senate after the Easter break.
French media were unanimous in describing prime minister Dominique de Villepin as the first casualty of the crisis.
Mr de Villepin reportedly intends to travel around France, talking to people, hold a few high-level diplomatic meetings and visit France's overseas territories. The extreme right-wing leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, praised the prime minister's "tenacity" in hanging on to his doomed youth jobs law for so long.
President Jacques Chirac seems to be the only one who still believes Mr de Villepin has a hope of succeeding him. "In general, predictions are proved wrong by events," Mr Chirac told Le Figaro. "There's still time" before the 2007 presidential election, he added.
But the Sarkozystes were less charitable. Mr de Villepin "is going to die over a low flame at Matignon [ the prime minister's office]," said one supporter of Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister and head of the UMP.
Taunted yesterday by the Socialist group leader in the National Assembly, Mr de Villepin snapped back: "You claim victory for your camp. We stand for lucidity and determination in adapting our country, in modernising France."
Though the prime minister admitted on Monday night that the failure of the CPE was "a trial. . . an extremely difficult time" for him, he apparently hopes that right-wing voters who did not want the CPE withdrawn will ultimately support him.
In the meantime, Mr Sarkozy is strutting. In a full-page interview with Le Figaro, he criticised Mr de Villepin's dead project and emphasised the power and influence of his political party.
"There are no Sarkozystes ," he said. "I am president of the UMP, thus of the whole [ political] family." Mr Sarkozy was condescending towards Mr de Villepin, saying: "The prime minister is doing good work for France . . . he must continue working."
The UMP will hold a conference on "the method, pace and meaning of reform" on May 13th, Mr Sarkozy announced. He made three concrete proposals for the future: that employers and labour unions settle disputes between themselves, with the government intervening only when necessary; that universities vote by secret ballot if students want to strike, and that one in two civil servants not be replaced on retirement.