From Economist: "A Victory of the Streets: "The decision amounts to a cave-in by the French government in the face of what was becoming an uncontrollable protest movement. Until ten days beforehand, Mr de Villepin had insisted that he would not bow to the pressure from the streets as so many previous prime ministers under France’s fifth republic had done. He argued that the CPE was a way of tackling youth unemployment, which runs at 23%. The idea was to encourage employers to hire, by giving them full flexibility to end the contract (sack the worker) within the first two years."