Hundreds of thousands of students marched through French cities Tuesday in new protests aimed at killing off a youth hire-and-fire law as rail workers and teachers staged one-day sympathy strikes.

France's ruling conservatives stopped short of agreeing to scrap the law but, faced with sliding poll ratings and internal rifts over how to deal with two months of sometimes violent protests, signaled possible concessions to trade unions.

Early counts around the country suggested turnout could reach that of a week ago, when anything between one and three million took part in one of the biggest days of protest seen in France's 48-year-old Fifth Republic.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told a rowdy parliament the government would not "throw in the towel." But the long-time Chirac ally risked being sidelined as Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy his main rival to lead the right in 2007 presidential elections emerged as a possible broker to end the conflict.

"The only solution is to scrap it (the law)," Lisa Mancin, an 18-year-old student said ahead of the main rally in central Paris, which began to a fanfare of a brass band, drums and the clanking of empty water bottles.

The mood at the front was festive and police were keeping a low-profile, mainly watching in side streets off the main route.

More than a quarter of a million demonstrators earlier marched through the southern city of Marseille, organizers said, while up to 75,000 joined a rally in the western city of Nantes, both higher turnouts than on March 28.

But disruption from the strikes was less than a week ago, and rail unions said 80 percent of trains were running across the country with city underground networks largely unaffected. Air traffic was hit, with authorities estimating around a third of flights had been cancelled and others delayed.

President Jacques Chirac has urged a softening of key parts of the First Job Contract (CPE) legislation and his conservatives signaled further possible climb-downs on the measure.

"We'll be ready as of tomorrow to receive the unions, to listen to them. There won't be any limits to the talks," Bernard Accoyer, parliamentary chief of Chirac's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, told French radio. But unions have vowed to resist overtures for talks unless ruling conservatives pledged to scrap the CPE and start anew on ways to tackle chronic youth joblessness stuck at 22 percent.

(China Daily April 5, 2006)