Paris ? President Jacques Chirac offered to soften a labor law that makes it easier to fire young workers, but the student and labor leaders who have organized nationwide strikes rejected his compromise Friday and repeated calls for the measure’s repeal.

Having brought more than 1 million demonstrators onto French streets this week, they renewed calls for national strikes starting Tuesday.

In a televised address, Chirac said the contract’s trial period, during which employers could summarily dismiss workers younger than 26, would be reduced from two years to one. Employers also would have to offer reasons for firing, he said – something not required in the original law.

“It is time to unblock the situation by being fair and reasonable,” said the 73-year-old president, inviting labor and student leaders to “take their full part” in discussions on his proposals.

The strike leaders were dismissive.

“We don’t want to negotiate,” said Bruno Julliard, head of the largest students’ union, on TF1 television. “The president had the chance to give a clear answer, which he didn’t do.”

A man shouts as a crowd gather during a televised address to the nation by French President Jacques Chirac, Friday March 31, 2006 on the Bastille Square, in Paris. Chirac said that he would press ahead with a contentious labor law that would make it easier to fire workers , but offered some concessions in the hope of calming furious protests and strikes. Poster reads: withdraw the CPE (or new job contract).

Gerard Aschiere, a labor leader, said Chirac “didn’t respond to demands of millions of workers and youth.”

The contract was among a series of measures drawn up after rioting in depressed suburbs last fall that laid bare the chronic problem of youth unemployment, especially among those with few qualifications and from immigrant backgrounds.

Nearly one French youth in four is unemployed, the highest rate in Western Europe and more than double the national average.

Chirac had little room to maneuver. Abandoning the contract would have been a mortal blow for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, its champion and a Chirac loyalist, and for the wider cause of reform in France. But in playing to all sides, Chirac may have prolonged the crisis.

“When people have taken to the streets, you need a symbolic measure to get them to go home again. Here, we have something that is incomprehensible,” said Jean-Luc Parodi, an analyst and director of the French Review of Political Sciences.

Villepin had argued that giving companies greater flexibility and allowing them to fire young workers would spur hiring, giving youths vital experience that could help them get more permanent contracts down the line.

In his address, Chirac backed Villepin on that point.