Protesters took to France's streets again on Tuesday and threatened a national strike as the government sought a way out of the crisis over a new law giving employers more leeway to dismiss young workers.
Deputies from the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) are eager to end a crisis that some fear could cost the right presidential and parliamentary elections in 2007. They said Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin was ready to soften some measures as long as they did not gut the law.
High school pupils across France took to the streets, including in Paris where some wore red masks to mark their anger over the CPE First Job Contract which allows employers to fire people under 26 for any reason during a two-year trial period.
Student Daniel Chastanut, 19, said Villepin could end the protests if he "would withdraw the CPE or he would at least modify it, for example to get rid of the two-year trial period".
Close by, one of the several thousand Paris protesters marched with a hangman's scaffold whose noose was formed out of the letters CPE.
Workers in France's large public sector are expected to join a one-day work stoppage next Tuesday called by unions who have stepped up their campaign to repeal a measure they say will create a new generation of "throwaway workers".
Ministers and conservative politicians signalled the government was ready to halve the two-year trial period and force bosses to explain to young workers why they have been fired, key demands of opponents. The ideas were among those Villepin discussed on Monday during meetings with students and employers.
One union leader said on Tuesday the changes being floated by the government went in the right direction but still did not go far enough.
Transport workers said they would join next Tuesday's strike but it remained unclear how much of an impact the action would have on the private sector.