Vancouver Sun
March 11, 1994
French youths stage riot over plan to offer low wages
PARIS -- Hundreds of rampaging French youths smashed shop
windows and hurled rocks at riot police Thursday during a
protest against government plans to offer substandard wages
to young people entering the work force.
An estimated 15,000 youths, mostly high school students,
took part in the demonstration, police said. Many defied
organizers' pleas for calm, overturned vehicles, pelted
police with rocks and bottles and smashed windows in the
Montparnasse and Boulevard Saint Michel areas of the Left
Bank of Paris
Attempts by police to disperse the demonstrators led to
scuffles, and several youths were dragged roughly into
custody. Police reported about 15 arrests and said at least
seven officers suffered light injuries.
Smaller marches took place in more than a dozen other
cities across France.
It was the second round of protests in a week against a
decree by Premier Edouard Balladur instituting a special
wage for high school and college graduates entering the work
force. They could be paid 20-per-cent less than the
standard wage for a year, provided the employer offered some
sort of training.
"Equal work, equal salary," shouted the marchers.
"No division between generations."
A delegation of student leaders met briefly Thursday with
one of Balladur's aides, but failed to obtain a promise that
the decree would be scrapped. The youths said a new round
of protests will be organized for March 17.
Major labor organizations plan national demonstrations
Saturday aimed at putting pressure on the conservative
government to create more jobs while preserving the job
security of those who are employed.
The leader of the opposition Socialist party, Michel
Rocard, said Balladur's government was "creating a mood of
incomprehension among French youth that could quickly become
a mood of anger."
-- Associated Press
Sid Shniad
