French Riot Police Break Up Demonstration at Sorbonne

Riot police stood guard at the Sorbonne after breaking up a three-day sit-in there Saturday, as France tried to quell student protests over job reforms.

Education Minister Gilles de Robien visited ransacked offices and held up torn books, hours after police in riot gear stormed the building and ejected about 200 students and other protesters who had occupied the building since Wednesday.

“This is what happens when you call for disorder,” he said.

The student protests fell far short of the 1968 rebellion against France’s old guard, which began in the Sorbonne and spread to streets and factories, leading to early elections and weakening the government of President Charles de Gaulle, who resigned a year later.

But they present a new test for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, whose plans to relax labor laws have forced his government to tackle street unrest for the second time in five months, after riots began in suburban Paris last year and spread.

Police using tear gas stormed the Sorbonne just before 4 a.m., forcing out the students and arresting 11 people, a spokesman said.

University authorities said the protesters had destroyed historic documents in the School of National Charters, an archive of pre-French Revolution texts.

But students denied any organized effort to damage university property, and accused the police of using unnecessary force. “Police showed violence which went beyond all the limits. People were playing music and they just got attacked in the most incredible way,” said Marianne, a 20-year-old theater student who did not give her last name.

Thousands of people protested across France last week over De Villepin’s plan to introduce a flexible “first employment contract,” which critics say would allow employers to hire and fire young workers more easily.

The contract would allow firms to hire employees younger than 26 for a two-year trial period before offering them a permanent job. De Villepin has said the approach would encourage firms to hire younger people.