Focus on Chirac as France awaits job law decision

PARIS, Mar 30 (Reuters) All eyes were on Jacques Chirac today as the French waited to see whether their president would back a controversial youth jobs law despite massive protests or call for it to be modified or withdrawn.

The first step in the countdown was expected on Thursday when the Constitutional Council was due to rule on the validity of the law, which Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has championed as a crucial tool to fight youth unemployment.

Chirac was expected to address the nation, possibly as early as today evening, to signal whether he backed Villepin to the end or felt marches by millions across France in recent weeks meant the government would have to beat a retreat.

As politicians awaited a decision, protesting students blocked several major traffic routes around France, causing traffic jams totalling 345 km around the country, officials reported.

Train lines were blocked around Marseille and Rennes.

The president has supported Villepin so far. Continuing to do so would prolong the protests against the government, while backing away could trigger Villepin's resignation and a full-blown government crisis.

''Waiting for Chirac,'' read the headline in the daily La Croix. ''He only has one shot and if he misses, I don't know where we're going,'' Le Figaro quoted a Chirac aide as saying.

''There is no good solution, we have to pick the least bad.'' The Constitutional Council could reject or validate the law, which has been passed by the National Assembly but not yet promulgated, or validate it with reservations. Chirac could promulgate it immediately if its passes muster.

''That would be a decision with serious consequences,'' said Bernard Thibault, head of the pro-communist CGT union.

Student and trade unions, in a rare united front against the First Jobs Law (CPE), have called for a fresh one-day strike next Tuesday after between one and three million people marched two days ago to demand Villepin abandon the contract.

''It's as if they expect no change,'' the daily Liberation wrote. But soon, it added, ''Chirac will have pronounced the most important words of the end of his term in office and we'll know if he has chosen the path of compromise or confrontation.'' FEARS ABOUT THE FUTURE The unions have urged Chirac to use his constitutional powers to cut out the job measures from an equal opportunities law they were attached to and send the law back to parliament.

The contract allows companies to fire under 26-year-olds easily during a 2-year trial period, a measure opponents say will create a generation of ''throw-away workers''.

Villepin says it will help cut youth unemployment of close to 23 percent by allowing firms to employ young people without fearing they have to be saddled with them.

Protests over the measure have disrupted studies and exams at the bulk of France's 84 universities and the government on Wednesday ordered head teachers of schools still blockaded by protesters to force them open, if necessary with police help.

The protests have dented French consumer confidence, which fell even more than expected in figures released today.

''The massive demonstrations against the CPE are crystallising all the fears of French households about unemployment. There's a serious fear about the future,'' said Mathieu Kaiser, an economist at BNP Paribas bank.

Commentators say the tidal wave of protest has left Villepin's future in the balance and a climbdown now could sink his hopes of running in next year's presidential election.

A new poll due out this weekend will show Villepin's support slumping 16 points among voters of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and his approval rating at just 29 percent, the daily Le Parisien said.

Today's protests, students briefly occupied the Paris beltway, blocked main intersections in and around Lille and took control of Marseille's main railway station. Most left peacefully when ordered by police.

Reuters SB KP1833