Students support France's disaffected youth

Hostility to the contract from people in the poor suburbs is a blow to Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, who claimed last weekend that the measure was designed to help "the young people in most difficulty".

Mr de Villepin seemed to be telling the student protesters in central Paris not to worry. As graduates of prestigious universities, such as the Sorbonne, they are not the intended recipients of the new contract. Instead, it is meant for the poorly-educated immigrant children in "les banlieues", who rioted and set fire to thousands of cars and buildings across France last year.

But this argument is being undermined by an increasing number of people in the suburbs repeating the same criticisms as the student demonstrators. The only difference is that people in the poor outer-city ghettos say they have the added worry of racial discrimination.

Edilson Monteiro, an 18-year-old school drop-out from Montfermeil, says: "Before the `first job contract', there were enough difficulties for people from the banlieues, with the difference in our clothes, our language and our culture, but now they are making things even more insecure.

"Young people are very worried about entering the world of work. Now if I make a mistake or upset the boss, he can just get rid of me without any reason," says Edilson, whose mother brought him to the local job centre after he quit as a construction sales agent.

Now he plans to retrain as a cook's assistant in a six-month paid training scheme, which if he passes, will lead to a full-time contract. He would refuse a "first job contract" if offered one. "Two years is too long. I'm with the demonstrators on that."

Many people have a deep distrust of company bosses, and suspect they are looking for any excuse to fire black or Arab workers.

And even on their front page:

French PM appeals for calm over labour reforms

Mr de Villepin's claim that the policy would help those "most in difficulty" is increasingly undermined by growing opposition from unemployed youths in poor suburbs.Young people in Clichy-sous-Bois, the run-down Paris suburb where last year's riots started, almost unanimously opposed the contract in interviews with the Financial Times this week. Many claimed they would turn down a job if offered one of the new contracts.

Most criticisms focused on the length of the trial period and the added insecurity it would bring. However, their hostility was also tinged with suspicions that it would give company bosses another way to discriminate against racial minorities. "If your head does not please the boss, that's it, you're finished," said Dapton, 21, an unemployed accountancy graduate at Aulnay-sous-Bois. Diabira Adama, 26, an unemployed computer technician queuing at a job centre in Clichy-sous-Bois, said: "It is totally unacceptable . . . it's great they are demonstrating in Paris."