Chirac’s plan

Paris

After three weeks of rioting by jobless Muslim youths, French President Jacques Chirac this week laid out a plan to fight discrimination against ethnic minorities. Chirac said he would establish a task force to create 50,000 civil service jobs for young people, concentrated in the health and cultural sectors as well as in the military and police. But Chirac rejected Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy’s recommendation that France adopt U.S.-style affirmative action or quotas. “It is the duty of the republic to give everybody the same opportunities,” Chirac said in a televised address. A heavy police presence has quelled much of the rioting, but barricades still protect many Paris locales.