(Adds detail, background)
* Incident happens on day of wider protests * CGT labour union turns against Hollande
PARIS, Oct 9 (Reuters) - French riot police used teargas todisperse protesters outside the Paris auto show on Tuesday,during nationwide demonstrations over mounting job losses in acountry where unemployment is at its highest since 1999 andeconomic growth at a standstill.
The incident came as the CGT labour union, one of the twobiggest in France, sought to flex its muscles by organising thestreet rallies in the first nationwide protests since SocialistPresident Francois Hollande took power in May.
Police intervened after around 1,000 protesters includingworkers from a doomed PSA Peugeot Citroen plantattempted to break through a security cordon around the locationof the car show on the edge of Paris, a Reuters reporter at thescene said.
Some protesters pelted the police with eggs and flour duringthe standoff.
France's unemployment rate stands above 10 percent and thenumber of jobless has topped 3 million for the first time in 13years.
CGT leader Bernard Thibault, who openly called for a vote tounseat former president Nicolas Sarkozy last May, said nothingwas changing under Hollande, who has promised to slash France'spublic deficit without killing growth or inflicting Greek-stylecuts in spending on voters.
"We're deep in crisis because of bad policy responses, quitesimply," Thibault told state television channel France 2. "If amajority of employees voted for a change of president it wasbecause they wanted a change of economic and social policy."
Thousands of people marched in Lyon and the southern portcity of Marseille, according to police and union estimates,while other protests were planned in other cities.
As marchers hit the streets, French lawmakers were asked toapprove a European pact that commits France, like other eurozone, countries to seek balanced public finances - a pactagreed to stem a debt crisis plaguing the region for more thantwo years.
(Reporting by Pauline Mevel and Nicholas Vinocur in Paris andJean-Francois Rosnoblet in Marseille; Writing by Brian Love;Editing by Alison Williams)
((brian.love@thomsonreuters.com)(+33 1 4949 5363)(ReutersMessaging: brian.love.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
Keywords: FRANCE PROTESTS/