Is there a moral here?
Government backs off on plan to cut youth's pay
PARIS -- Anxious to end a wave of student protests, the
conservative government suspended Monday its controversial
plan to pay young people less than the minimum wage.
The government gave itself a week to develop another plan
to combat 25-per-cent unemployment among French youth.
It did not rule out reinstituting the sub-minimum wage at
a later date, but said alternatives would be sought in
consultation with student groups bitterly opposed to the
wage cuts.
The announcement came after Premier Edouard Balladur met
leaders of national student organizations that have been
campaigning for three weeks against the plan.
Hundreds of thousands of youths across France have joined
protest marches, many of them ending in battles with police.
At least one of the student groups at Monday's meeting
rejected Balladur's offer, saying it fell short of outright
retraction of the wage plan. It urged student to go ahead
with another protest march planned for Thursday.
Balladur, who completes his first year in office today,
has been wary of yielding to the students after caving in to
previous mass protest campaigns. He backed down on a job-
cutting plan for Air France when a strike turned violent and
bowed to massive opposition to a bill that would have
boosted taxpayer financing of private schools.
On Sunday, a second round of voting for district councils
across France confirmed that Balladur's conservative
coalition still holds most of the support that swept it into
power in March 1993 parliamentary elections.
The governing coalition lost 10 council seats, but still
took 52 per cent of the vote.
-- Associated Press
Sid Shniad
