ALGIERS, May 1 — Despite a massive police presence, nearly 100 workers and students held a May Day rally today organized by the National Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the Unemployed (CNDDC) — [initials in French]) to highlight the massive 30% jobless rate in Algeria. Slogans included “dignity, equal opportunity and decent work.”

The CNDDC is a coalition of various student, teacher and youth organizations. The main speaker was a long-term unemployed woman with a college degree, Dalila Touat. The cops had arrested her last month for handing out leaflets and had just released her three days ago.

“The demands of the unemployed are simple,” she declared with tears in her eyes. “How are we to explain the fact that, in a country that is rich in so many natural resources, there is so much scorn for citizens who only ask to work and to live?”

CNDDC spokesperson Samir Larabi said, “We are currently in talks with the Student Coordination in order to unite our struggles.” He added that holding the rally on May Day, a celebration of labor, in order to demand work is “a paradoxical