French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin will announce on Monday how the government plans to revise an unpopular youth job contract in the hope of bringing more than one month of mass protests and strikes to an end. Villepin is to present President Jacques Chirac with the "agreed position" of the ruling UMP party on changes to the First Job Contract (CPE) at 8:30 a.m., sources at the presidency said. After the meeting Villepin will make an announcement at 10:30 a.m., his office said in a statement that gave no further details.The "easy hire, easy fire" law allows firms to fire workers under 26 without giving a reason during a two-year trial period but it has proved highly unpopular, provoking a series of mass marches and national strikes. Unions, who want the CPE repealed because it removes job security for young people hired under the contract, threatened on Sunday to extend their protests unless Chirac provides a clear solution to a crisis that has weakened his prime minister. "If tomorrow the message isn't clear, the order of the day will be new action ... before May 1," said Annick Coupe, national representative of the Solidaires union.
Backers of the contract say it will help reduce France's 22 percent youth unemployment by helping employers bypass laws that make it hard to lay off workers -- something often cited by firms as a disincentive for taking on new hires. Students are planning fresh protest marches on Tuesday. "We need a clear response on the part of the government and the president of the republic, which is to say the withdrawal of the CPE, pure and simple," Bruno Julliard, president of the French National Union of Students, told LCI television.