Chirac calls for urgent talks over French protests

PARIS, March 17 (Reuters) French President Jacques Chirac today called for swift talks between the government and unions over a youth employment law after Paris protests against the measure ended in violence and arrests.

Ministers tried to stem growing opposition to the new contract with a conciliatory tone, one saying no worker could be laid off without justification under the law, despite critics who say it will create a generation of ''disposable workers''.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who took a hard line with suburban rioters last year, said most students had protested peacefully and blamed the violence on a small group of ''hooligans'' looking for a fight.

The government told prosecutors to deal firmly with those involved in clashes that left a handful of Paris shop fronts and cafes smashed and 92 people injured. Police used teargas and water cannon to quell the violence and of 187 people detained, 71 were still in custody today.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has stoutly defended his First Job Contract despite mounting opposition that has sunk his approval ratings, rattled the ruling UMP party and threatened his thinly-veiled ambition to run for president in 2007 elections.

''You know the government is ready for dialogue and I hope this will start as quickly as possible,'' Chirac said at an awards ceremony at his official Elysee Palace residence.

Unions and student groups are planning further action on Saturday and hope to step up pressure on Villepin by bringing more than a million people onto the streets, topping the size of March 7 rallies.

''This demonstration must take place calmly and respect everyone,'' Chirac said of the protest due in central Paris.

Unions and student groups have tied any talks to withdrawal of the law, which is opposed by 68 per cent of French people according to an opinion poll published in today's Le Parisien newspaper. That is a rise of 13 percentage points in a week.

Student leaders said 300,000-600,000 university and high school students took part in yesterday's action and vowed to press on.

Officials put the number at 247,500 nationwide.

Around two-thirds of France's 84 universities were disrupted by protests on Friday, down from three-quarters, the first time the number had fallen since the start of the protest movement.

CONCILIATORY TONE Villepin says the CPE will help young people in poor suburbs that were affected by youth riots last fall, to find jobs. It allows companies to take on workers for a two-year trial period before offering them a permanent job.

But some youngsters in those suburbs say they do not like the sound of the plan.

''I am totally against it. You have a contract for 2 years and can be fired any time,'' said unemployed Jerome Desprol, 24, from Aulnay-Sous-Bois, a northeastern Paris suburb.

Government ministers today redoubled their efforts to strike a conciliatory tone and find a way out of the sharpest crisis to hit Villepin's 10-month-old government.

''I don't doubt for a single moment that we are capable ... of taking steps to find a solution,'' Labour Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said on France 2 television.

While government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope expressed indignation over the disturbances, Sarkozy distinguished between the peaceful majority of demonstrators and a few troublemakers. ''There were a few hundred delinquents who came spoiling for a fight. Among them were the far left, the far right, hooligans, louts from a certain number of neighbourhoods,'' he said.

The protests have reinvigorated the opposition Socialists, who have struggled to recover from defeat in 2002 elections.

''I really urge the government to withdraw this bad project before there is a serious accident,'' Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister who hopes to run in 2007, told LCI television.

Reuters SHR DB2208