Return of the French Riots

This time, its youth torching cars and causing mayhem because the job situation in France is pitiful. The government is trying to do something, anything really, about the incredibly high unemployment rates among young people, which is pegged at 23%.

Rampaging French youths set fire to cars and looted shops in Paris on Thursday, marring protests against a youth jobs law that Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, in a conciliatory move, agreed to discuss with unions.

Aides said Villepin would meet senior trade union officials on Friday to try to defuse a crisis that has triggered a national strike threat and drawn hundreds of thousands of protesters on to French streets.

In Paris, riot police fired tear gas in clashes with youths, dubbed "casseurs" by the French, in the Invalides areas near the Foreign Ministry, Reuters witnesses said.

Youths threw stones at police and set fire to the door of an apartment building in running battles at the end of a largely peaceful rally by thousands of students and workers against the CPE First Job Contract.

"This time, there are lots of young criminals on the march who are there to steal and smash. This discredits the movement," said Charlie Herblin, a 22-year-old worker on the march.

Dozens of young people, many wearing masks or hoods, overturned cars, smashed shop windows and robbed student demonstrators of clothes and mobile phones, witnesses said. Police said they had arrested 42 people.

Clashes also erupted in the western city of Rennes, where about 300 to 400 youths battled with police.

No Pasaran notes that this is what the French are calling "adapting to new circumstances." Not particularly well, I might add.