PARIS - A day of rioting and widespread protests against a government plan to relax job protections ended with clouds of tear gas, continued paralysis at 16 universities and an ultimatum for France's president: Keep the law from going into effect or face the consequences.
The protests, which drew some 500,000 people in cities across the country, were the biggest show yet of escalating anger that is testing the strength of the conservative government before elections next year.
Protest organizers urged President Jacques Chirac on Saturday to prevent the law from taking effect in April.
The group said it expects an answer by Monday, when leaders will decide whether to continue protests that have paralyzed universities and dominated political discourse for weeks.
"We give them two days to see if they understand the message we've sent," said René Jouan of the CFDT union.
At Saturday's protest in Paris, seven officers and 17 protesters were injured during two melees at the close of the march, at the Place de la Nation in eastern Paris and the Sorbonne. Police said they arrested 156 people in the French capital.
As the march ended, four cars were set afire, police said, and a McDonald's restaurant and store fronts were attacked.
Tensions escalated later Saturday as about 500 youths moved on to the Sorbonne, trying to break through tall metal blockades erected after police stormed the Paris landmark a week ago to dislodge occupying students. The institution has become a symbol of the protest.
Police turned water cannons on the protesters at the Sorbonne and were seen hitting and throwing youths to the ground and dragging them into vans.
"Liberate the Sorbonne!" protesters shouted. "Police everywhere, justice nowhere."
In an apparent effort to set fire to a police van serving as a blockade, protesters instead torched the entrance of a nearby Gap store.
With commerce snarled in some cities, people asked whether Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin would stand firm on the change that he says is needed to encourage hiring.
The usually outspoken leader was silent Saturday.
Protests reached every corner of France, with organizers citing 160 marches from the small provincial town of Rochefort in the southwest to the major city of Lyon in the southeast.
The Paris protest march was the biggest, attracting some 80,000 people, according to police.
Organizers put the number at 300,000.
Widespread discontent with the government has crystalized around a new type of job contract that Villepin says will alleviate France's sky-high youth unemployment by getting companies to risk hiring young workers.
Critics say the contract abolishes labor protections crucial to the social fabric.
The law would allow businesses to fire young workers in the first two years on a job without giving a reason, removing them from protections that restrict layoffs of regular employees.
Companies are often reluctant to add employees because it is hard to let them go if business conditions worsen.
Students see a subtext in the new law: make it easier to hire and fire to help France compete in a globalizing world economy.
Youth joblessness stands at 23 percent nationwide.
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