French students and unions yesterday vowed to press on with mass protests over a youth labour law, rejecting Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's offer of talks and demanding he abandon the measure.
Facing the biggest test of his 10 months in power, Mr Villepin defended his CPE youth labour contract in a Sunday television interview, ignoring calls from opponents and members of his own party for him to rethink, suspend or drop the project.
Protesters and police briefly skirmished near Paris's Sorbonne University, which police stormed at the weekend to end the first student occupation there since a 1968 student revolt that weakened Mr Villepin's political idol Charles de Gaulle.
Police in full riot gear sealed off the prestigious university as hundreds of students gathered and chanted "Withdraw, Withdraw, Withdraw the CPE!".
Mr Villepin had offered to negotiate new guarantees with unions and employers, but students reacted with derision.
"It's a big joke," said Elise Jullien, a 19-year-old literature student. She vowed to keep up the protests that have hit about half of France's 80 faculties.
"This is not just a protest against the CPE, but also a protest against the way this government functions, which is totalitarian," she said, standing outside the Sorbonne.
Nationwide protests were planned for today, Thursday and Saturday and left-wing parliamentarians said they would challenge the CPE in the country's top court, the Constitutional Council.
Gas workers added to Mr Villepin's woes, cutting supplies by 30 per cent in a one-day strike in protest at the planned merger between Gaz de France and Suez.
Mr Villepin devised his youth job contract to help slash youth unemployment of 23 per cent. The measure would allow firms to hire people aged under 26 for a two-year trial before offering them a permanent job.
Mr Villepin says the CPE will encourage firms to hire young people, opponents say it will make it easier to fire them.
Initial protests won modest support, prompting Mr Villepin to railroad the measure through Parliament to override opposition obstruction tactics.
But that move, a rise in unemployment and missteps over a planned privatisation and the scrapping of a toxic warship, fuelled public anger and up to a million people took to the streets in nationwide demonstrations last week.