Students take jobs protest to elite Paris college

Around 200 students invaded one of Paris's most elite colleges last night, clashing with riot police as protests intensified against the government's plans to curb France's youth unemployment.

The students swarmed into the College de France, one of France's most prestigious research and teaching institutions, hurling stones and metal barricades at riot police who used teargas to try to disperse the chanting crowd.

Dozens of students barricaded themselves inside the university as others faced down police on the street. They demanded the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, withdraw his measures to alleviate France's high levels of youth unemployment. One in four young people in France is unemployed, but the figures rise to 50% in the poor suburbs.

Mr de Villepin has insisted the way to alleviate unemployment is by paradoxically making it easier to fire workers aged under 26. The hope is it will spur employers to hire young people safe in the knowledge they are not obliged to retain them.

But last night, student leaders, trade unionists and Socialist politicians issued new calls for the conservative government to withdraw the plan. Some urged President Jacques Chirac to intervene.

Students at around half of France's 88 universities are on strike over the measure. Hundreds gathered last night at the School of Medicine to decide their plan of action before moving to "occupy" the College de France. Thousands have vowed to block cities across France in street demonstrations today.

Protesters leading the sit-in at the College de France demanded the government reopen Sorbonne University, where riot police used teargas to forcibly evict hundreds of protesting students in a pre-dawn raid on Saturday. The faculty had been "occupied" for three-days and nights.

Mr de Villepin faces his toughest test yet over the contrat de première embauche or "first employment contract" - his popularity ratings have plummeted and his prospects in next year's presidential elections have been severely dented by the growing demonstrations.