FRENCH Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin was yesterday forced to make a dramatic climbdown by withdrawing the hated CPE (Contrat Premiere Embauche) for youth.
The measure, allowing employers to hire and fire young people under 26 at will, sparked two general strikes and brought millions of people onto the streets.
After meeting with President Jacques Chirac, de Villepin went on television yesterday morning to concede defeat, confirming that the law that came into force at the beginning of this month was now being scrapped.
‘For some time the action of the government had been guided by one objective, to provide thousands of young people from our society with opportunities for jobs,’ de Villepin said.
‘I wanted to act very quickly because the dramatic situation and the despair of a number of young people warranted it.
‘This was not understood by everyone, I’m sorry to say.’
The CPE was pushed through the French parliament by de Villepin, after an uprising of impoverished unemployed youth in the banlieues (suburbs) of Paris spread across the country last autumn.
But opinion polls showed the scheme was opposed by everyone except the employers.
The massive demonstrations and blockades of universities, high schools, roads and railways then started nervous employers’ leaders talking about re-drawing the law.
President Chirac signed the CPE into law, but youth and workers responded by staging a general strike on April 4 that saw almost a million people take to the streets of Paris and marches in 258 towns and cities.
French trade unions and student federations then gave the government a 10-day deadline to withdraw the CPE, warning that they were ready to take whatever action was necessary to scrap the law, if they were ignored.
French youth did not bother to wait for the government’s reply – staging blockades of Paris’s Gare du Nord, Gare de l’Est and Gare St Lazare over the weekend, occupying the track and halting trains again.
Claire Krepper, from the French teachers’ union UNSA, told News Line yesterday: ‘I must say we are really happy that the CPE has been done away with!
‘The huge demonstrations and the unity of students and workers’ organisations have made this victory possible.
‘We are glad that young people won’t be stigmatised even more than they are already when they want to enter the job market.
‘We are also very glad that we have been able to defeat another attack on workers’ rights.
‘After too many lost battles (pensions reforms in 2003, CNE in 2005), this victory shows that social movements can succeed.
‘This is a new hope and this gives a renewed sense of responsibility to workers’ unions.
‘Together, they must think and fight in order to change the French “social model” for the better.’
Yesterday students’ leaders said they would go ahead with more demonstrations to demand fair treatment for youth.