France unveiled plans on Thursday to give youngsters in poor suburbs a better education and equal opportunities after its worst urban rioting in almost 40 years, and said it would punish discrimination with swingeing fines.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who used emergency measures to quell the unrest, is now under pressure to show he can tackle the problems behind three weeks of rioting, mostly by youths of African or Arab origin.
He said acts of discrimination would be punishable by fines of up to 25,000 euros ($29,500), firms would consider guidelines to make job applications anonymous and the government and trade unions would try to increase diversity in the state sector.
"The crisis we have just lived through has revealed weaknesses and inadequacies and has made us aware of the progress which has to be made," Villepin told his monthly news conference.
"The urgency today is to make equality of opportunity a reality for everyone, with two levers: jobs and education."
Villepin, who made cutting unemployment his conservative government's priority after President Jacques Chirac appointed him on May 31, hailed a fall in the jobless rate below 10 percent in recent months but said this was not enough.
He said children who faced difficulties at school would receive more support, and outlined a "contract of parental responsibility" to be drawn up with social workers and schools to ensure parents were involved in their children's education. Villepin also said young people would be able to take up apprenticeships from the age of 14 instead of 16 and that the prestigious Sciences Po university would set up an experimental school in a poor Paris suburb that was hit by rioting.