French students have staged sporadic victory marches across the country, a day after President Jacques Chirac axed a hire-and-fire youth jobs law that had drawn millions onto the streets in protest. A few thousand students have marched across France - just a fraction of the estimated 1 million who had marched a week earlier to demand the withdrawal of the First Job Contract (CPE).The CPE would have made it easier for employers to sack young workers. Parliament is due to start debating measures to help disadvantaged young people find work designed by the ruling Union for a Popular Movement to replace the CPE and end two months of crisis. Police say 2,300 people marched in Paris, compared with 700,000 last week before the Government u-turn. The lower turnout has been repeated in provincial towns across the country. "What's happening today is that there is some wavering ... but one should not conclude that our movement is dead," Anna Melun, of the main Unef students' union, said.
As CPE opponents vow to keep up their guard until Parliament votes through new measures for young workers, Education Minister Gilles de Robien says life at most of France's 84 universities is returning to normal. Some 3,400 people were arrested over five days of nationwide protests against the CPE in two months.
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 
The French president has announced that he will sign a controversial youth job law despite weeks of protests, but with the promise that it will be amended right away to weaken two of its most disputed reforms. Jacques Chirac's long-awaited speech on Friday seemed aimed at striking a balance between 
France's prime minister and the country's unions have failed to break the deadlock over a youth labour law at a first meeting called to discuss a crisis that has triggered mass protests and riots. Employers' groups also met with Dominique de Villepin on Friday to tell him the contract might not be the best way to reduce unemployment and warn him the violence was endangering the economy.
PARIS: Around 420 people were arrested on Thursday during protests across France against a youth jobs programme, mainly for violence, vandalism and attacks on security forces, police said. In the central Paris area of Invalides, police said that 140 people were arrested after violent incidents and clashes with security forces. A total of 18 officers were slightly injured in clashes around the country, they said.