W-OLF
04-01-2006, 11:35 PM
De Villepin Admits Errors in Handling Law
Published: 4/1/06, 5:06 PM EDT
PARIS (AP) - Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said in a newspaper interview to be published Sunday that he was misunderstood and made errors in his management of a hotly contested youth labor law that sent 1 million protesting students and union members into the streets.
He denied, however, that he has been disavowed by President Jacques Chirac, who, in the hope of restoring calm, ordered up a new, softer version of the law meant to make it easier to fire young workers.
Instead, Chirac's move appears to have fed his opponents' ardor. Unions and students planned a new day of strikes and protests Tuesday.
The strikes and violent protests appear to be taking a toll on Villepin, the author of the new law. Villepin was dealt a blow by Chirac's decision to order up a softened measure.
Villepin's measure aimed at encouraging companies to hire workers under 26 by making it easier to fire them. He fought relentlessly to keep the law alive, and was criticized for being intransigent.
"There is misunderstanding and incomprehension about the direction of my action. I profoundly regret it," he told Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper. Asked if he had made mistakes, he replied, "Of course, in all political action there is some error."
But, he added, the "main error" would have been "to do nothing against the mass unemployment in our country."
Asked if he might resign, Villepin said; "I'm not a man to give up."
A poll published Saturday showed 72 percent of the French did not find Chirac's formula for an exit from the crisis convincing, and 75 percent said Villepin had been weakened by the crisis.
There were no signs of a crack in the opposition to the law, which has spread from students to trade unions and the political left and crippled dozens of universities and high schools with strikes and blockades. Even some members of the governing party remained critical.
In a national television address Friday night, Chirac offered to modify two key elements of the law, reducing a trial period from two years to one and requiring employers to provide an explanation if an employee is fired.
Union leader Jean-Claude Mailly of the Workers' Force said he would "not close the door" to talks with the government if no conditions were attached and if dialogue "could lead to withdrawal" of the contested law.
"So, for the time being, nothing in our position has changed," Mailly told The Associated Press.
The measure is meant to cut a 22 percent unemployment rate among youths that reaches 50 percent in some poor, heavily immigrant neighborhoods. Villepin said in the interview that, according to the national statistics agency, it would create up to 80,000 new jobs a year "for a budgetary cost of zero."
credit BellSouth
Published: 4/1/06, 5:06 PM EDT
PARIS (AP) - Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said in a newspaper interview to be published Sunday that he was misunderstood and made errors in his management of a hotly contested youth labor law that sent 1 million protesting students and union members into the streets.
He denied, however, that he has been disavowed by President Jacques Chirac, who, in the hope of restoring calm, ordered up a new, softer version of the law meant to make it easier to fire young workers.
Instead, Chirac's move appears to have fed his opponents' ardor. Unions and students planned a new day of strikes and protests Tuesday.
The strikes and violent protests appear to be taking a toll on Villepin, the author of the new law. Villepin was dealt a blow by Chirac's decision to order up a softened measure.
Villepin's measure aimed at encouraging companies to hire workers under 26 by making it easier to fire them. He fought relentlessly to keep the law alive, and was criticized for being intransigent.
"There is misunderstanding and incomprehension about the direction of my action. I profoundly regret it," he told Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper. Asked if he had made mistakes, he replied, "Of course, in all political action there is some error."
But, he added, the "main error" would have been "to do nothing against the mass unemployment in our country."
Asked if he might resign, Villepin said; "I'm not a man to give up."
A poll published Saturday showed 72 percent of the French did not find Chirac's formula for an exit from the crisis convincing, and 75 percent said Villepin had been weakened by the crisis.
There were no signs of a crack in the opposition to the law, which has spread from students to trade unions and the political left and crippled dozens of universities and high schools with strikes and blockades. Even some members of the governing party remained critical.
In a national television address Friday night, Chirac offered to modify two key elements of the law, reducing a trial period from two years to one and requiring employers to provide an explanation if an employee is fired.
Union leader Jean-Claude Mailly of the Workers' Force said he would "not close the door" to talks with the government if no conditions were attached and if dialogue "could lead to withdrawal" of the contested law.
"So, for the time being, nothing in our position has changed," Mailly told The Associated Press.
The measure is meant to cut a 22 percent unemployment rate among youths that reaches 50 percent in some poor, heavily immigrant neighborhoods. Villepin said in the interview that, according to the national statistics agency, it would create up to 80,000 new jobs a year "for a budgetary cost of zero."
credit BellSouth