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France’s Constitutional Council today threw President Jacques Chirac a political googly by ruling that there is nothing wrong with a deeply unpopular new labour law that has sparked massive protests.

The decision leaves the French President with an unenviable choice: either to accept the law championed by Dominic de Villepin, his beleaguered prime minister - at the risk of further strikes and demonstrations - or to seek a negotiated solution, perhaps by sending the law back to parliament or by proposing modifications.

Rarely has a decision by the council, which rules on the constitutionality of French laws, been so awaited. The student- and union-led protest movement has plunged M. Chirac’s government into crisis, and another mass strike and day of action is planned for next Tuesday. A decision to strike the law down would have offered politicians a way out.

Instead, the council’s nine appointed members signed off on the most contested clause which will set up the so-called first job contract. It would make it easier for employers to fire workers aged under 26, a degree of flexibility that the government argues will ease the extremely high rate of unemployment among young people in France.

Senior politicians in M. Chirac’s governing majority said that they expected him to promulgate the law quickly, a decision likely to further infuriate the million protesters who flooded onto the streets of French cities on Tuesday.

Today students holding banners blocked the tracks at the Gare de Lyon railway station in Paris, in the latest show of displeasure.

To soften the anger, M. Chirac may offer talks with labour leaders or appoint a mediator to deal with their concerns, MPs said.

M. Chirac’s office said he would speak to the nation on the issue tomorrow night, leaving him 24 hours to mull over his decision.

The leader of the opposition Socialist Party, Francois Hollande, immediately asked Chirac not to promulgate the law and to send it back to parliament.

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