In a speech last night, Nicolas Sarkozy outlined his political priorities after the disastrous result for the UMP party in regional elections. Le Figaro says the President wanted to show that he’s still in charge. For Libération, his speech showed a swing to the right in his policies. THURSDAY, 25th MARCH, 2010
French Labour Minister Xavier Darcos (photo) asked firms with more than 1,000 employees to lead talks with unions on reducing workplace stress. At former state-owned monopoly France Telecom, 24 employees have committed suicide in 18 months.
In the past 18 months 23 employees at France Telecom have committed suicide, which unions blame on the firm's restructuring programme. Employment minister Xavier Darcos is due to meet it's CEO Tuesday to discuss the issue.
Demonstrations all over France against a government plan to reform high schools gathered around 127,000 students according to police. Earlier in the week the government decided to postpone plans for a year and review reforms.
Faced with a growing student protest movement, French Education Minister Xavier Darcos announced he would suspend the plan for reform of the French high school system he was expected to unveil Tuesday.
Teachers from all levels of the French education system, kindergarten to university, go on strike on Thursday over job cuts. Primary schools will be particularly affected, with seven in 10 teachers stopping work, according to the unions.
Nearly 12 million students returned to their classrooms across France on Tuesday, but teacher's unions are already organizing a day of protests on September 11 against new school reforms that include thousands of job cuts.
Xavier Darcos 
