French President Jacques Chirac's conservative government faced a major challenge to its economic policies on Saturday as tens of thousands of public and private sector workers protested over labour laws, pensions and schools. With more than 50,000 taking to the streets in provincial cities, organisers said they hoped for a national turnout of at least 300,000 nationwide to ram home their message.
"The government would do well not only to hear but to listen to the workers," said the secretary-general of the CGT union, Bernard Thibault, at the start of the rally in Paris.
The protests come as parliament debates a government plan to allow staff in the private sector to increase overtime and work up to 48 hours a week, the maximum allowed under EU law. But managers must first agree the changes with unions.
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin says rules must be relaxed to help cut stubbornly high unemployment, currently close to 10 percent, and make the world's fifth largest economy more competitive.
Four of France's five major unions called Saturday's protests against reforms they say would sound the death knell of the 35-hour week and result in longer hours without extra pay.
"Chirac, Raffarin, are you sleeping? Your workers are in the street," chanted demonstrators in Toulouse in south-west France.
The 35-hour week was introduced in 1998 by the previous Socialist administration in an effort to reduce joblessness. The party has called on Raffarin to abandon his reform and re-open negotiations with the unions.
"This reform will have very unfortunate consequences on the labour market as, at a time when we have three million unemployed, overtime will be increased which will deprive even more people of jobs," said Socialist party leader Francois Hollande at a demonstration in the western city of Rennes.
Buoyed by the success of January 20 rallies that drew support from 210,000 state workers - the public sector employs about a quarter of the French workforce - unions say their campaign is gaining momentum.
Raffarin is wary of large public protests after voters punished his government for unpopular economic cutbacks in regional and European Parliament elections last year.
He has played down any parallels with street protests that are widely seen as causing the downfall of the last conservative government in 1997.
Although no elections are due before 2007, the cash-strapped government is concerned French voters could express their anger over reforms when they vote in a referendum on the European Union constitution before the summer.
Both Raffarin and Chirac have urged voters to approve the treaty on its merits and not allow themselves to be side-tracked by domestic political issues.
A recent poll showed some 77 percent of workers surveyed wanted to keep their working week at the current level. Only 18 percent wanted to work longer hours.