PARIS, April 11 (Xinhua) -- French students took to the streets on Tuesday to keep up the pressure on the French government, urging a substitute to the First Employment Contract (CPE) job law.

    Unions and student groups celebrated victory with many calling for more concessions on employment after President Jacques Chirac announced Monday to replace a key provision of the CPE law, which has triggered two months of strikes in which more than 3,600 people were arrested.

    Tuesday's protests remained small-scale, with about 600 demonstrators in the southern city of Marseilles and 1,000 in eastern Grenoble, 1,000 in Rennes in the northwest and a few hundred in Paris.

    Opponents said the CPE law, which allows employers to terminate contracts with young workers aged under 26, will erode hard-won labor rights and make it more difficult for youths to find long-term jobs.

    French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also president of the ruling UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) party, said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro in its Tuesday edition that he stood by his idea despite the government's decision to scrap an unpopular youth jobs plan.

    "If we want to restore hope to the French people, great changes are essential," Sarkozy told Le Figaro newspaper.

    He advocated a radical change in France's economic model, including the liberalization of labor markets, sell-offs of state housing and private funding for universities.

    "The CPE may have given the impression the young people were being stigmatized. I would not want the idea of reform to be swept away because of this unfortunate case," Sarkozy said. Enditem