Dozens of officers hurt in French student protests

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/03/17/france-protest060317.html

French authorities arrested 272 people overnight after an estimated 250,000 students spilled onto streets across the country to protest a new youth employment law, setting cars on fire and injuring 51 police and riot officers. French President Jacques Chirac, concerned that protests planned for Saturday could also turn violent, called for talks Friday between the government and union leaders organizing the demonstrations.

The protesters were upset with a new law that gives companies the power to fire workers under the age of 26 without cause during the first two years of their employment. Waving banners and wearing garbage bags to suggest that the new law would make them disposable, university and high school students marched through French towns and cities in about 200 separate protests. The worst violence came near the Sorbonne university in Paris late Thursday.

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