“This was not understood by everyone, I’m sorry to say,� Villepin said.
The new measures increase the government’s role in the work place instead of decreasing it, as Villepin had sought.

Cynthia Estlund, a professor of labor, employment and property law at New York University, says the new law could have been helpful. “It follows conventional economic wisdom [of hiring and firing employees at will] that is used in the United States. Young people don’t have a track record. When you throw into the equation young, poor Muslim employees, it’s not hard to understand the employer’s position.�

Estlund says globalization is undermining some valuable protection. “Lives are more humane because of flexible labor laws, but that doesn’t mean you can protect against these barricades.�

Villepin drew up the labor legislation as part of his response to last fall’s wave of rioting in France’s impoverished suburbs, where many immigrants and their French-born children live. The unemployment rate for youths under 26 is a staggering 22 percent nationwide, but soars to nearly 50 percent in some of those troubled areas.

The plan sparked weeks of protests and strikes that shut down dozens of universities, prompted clashes between youths and police and snarled road, train and air travel.

Unions had been threatening more demonstrations and walkouts just hours before the announcement from Chirac, and some students appeared unwilling to abandon their protest right away.

“We must go forward carefully,� says Lise Prunier, an 18-year-old biology student at the University of Paris-Jussieu. “For the moment, our movement will continue.�

– By staff and wire reports