French transit workers began striking late Monday as hundreds of thousands of people across the country prepared to participate in nationwide protests against a hastily adopted new labor law.

The strikes and protests planned for Tuesday represent a test of wills, with students and trade unions demanding that the unpopular law be rescinded and the country's embattled prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, insisting that it go into effect, albeit with possible changes.

Mr. de Villepin on Monday made a new offer to meet with student and union leaders on Wednesday "to advance and get out of the current crisis." But no progress was made at an earlier meeting with union leaders, and it was not clear what the prime minister could offer that would persuade the protest leaders to back down.

The strikes that began late Monday will affect the national airline, Air France, and operations at the country's airports, as well as the national railways and subways. The postal service, banks and media organizations will also face walkouts.

The law, which would make it easy for companies to fire workers under age 26 during their first two years on the job, was an attempt by Mr. de Villepin to make France's labor laws more flexible. Anger over the law has crystallized the general malaise among workers of a younger generation who fear losing the job security and benefits enjoyed by their parents. It has also sharpened early competition for the presidential elections next year. Mr. de Villepin hopes to win his party's nomination.

But with the weather turning warm and the protest movement showing no signs of slowing, Mr. de Villepin's prospects for emerging from the crisis unscathed look increasingly slim. His political rivals are already positioning themselves to pick up the spoils.

Mr. de Villepin's chief nemesis within his own party, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, said at a rally in the northern industrial town of Douai that, "social dialogue is an essential condition to the success of all reform," a pointed reference to Mr. de Villepin's failure to consult unions or the public before pushing his new law through Parliament.

Meanwhile, Francois Hollande, the leader of France's opposition Socialist Party, repeated his calls on Monday for the law to be repealed and derided Mr. de Villepin's invitation to union and student leaders, saying he was wasting their time.

Polls indicate that the public is solidly against Mr. de Villepin, with 63 percent of those surveyed in a poll published Monday by the newspaper Le Monde saying that they disagree with his decision to press ahead with the law.

Student and union leaders are quick to point out that they have not called for a paralyzing general strike as they did in May 1968. Still, the protests have already interrupted classes at 69 of France's 84 universities, as well as at nearly a quarter of the country's 4,300 high schools.

The police are braced for a repetition of the scattered violence that has marred two earlier protests, leaving one man in a coma, and shops and cars in flames.

Many people fear that the renewed unrest could reignite the nightly arson by the country's second-generation immigrant youths. Those incidents destroyed dozens of buildings and businesses and thousands of cars last November.

On Monday, two cars were set on fire and others damaged outside a high school in St.-Denis, a suburb northeast of Paris, after dozens of youths scuffled with the police.

But the violence is not only coming from the immigrant youths; self-styled anarchists have been photographed smashing windows and setting cars on fire.

Source: Agencies