By Tamora Vidaillet
PARIS (Reuters) - French unions said on Friday they would keep up pressure on President Nicolas Sarkozy after up to 3 million people joined protests over the economic crisis.
But the unions held off deciding on a possible new round of strikes until a meeting planned for March 30.
The turnout at a day of rallies and demonstrations in cities across France on Thursday was the largest at any protest since Sarkozy's election in May 2007. The demonstrators challenged the government's response to the crisis.
Representatives from eight unions told a news conference that while they had yet to decide on how they would proceed, they were united in their will to make their voices heard.
"What counts in today's message is the affirmation by all unions that there will be a united follow-up to yesterday's movement," said Maryse Dumas, second-in-charge at the powerful CGT trade union.
Union officials said they would hold internal meetings before March 30, when they hoped to arrive at a decision.
Speaking in Brussels at the close of a European summit, Sarkozy said the protests in France underscored the worries of some employees, but that national action could not provide any response to the global crisis.
"My role is not to comment one day on worries, another on protests and a third on opinion polls. My role is to take decisions and to obtain results," he told reporters.
In 2009 the French economy faces the worst recession since World War Two. More than 2 million people are now out of work and, despite a recent fall in inflation, even those with a job have struggled with the high cost of living.
To deal with the crisis, the government passed a 26 billion euro (9.7 billion pounds) plan last year to stimulate investment and Sarkozy offered 2.65 billion euros of extra aid to households after the January 29 strike.
But Prime Minister Francois Fillon repeated on Thursday that no more aid would follow. He rejected union demands including a boost for the low paid and tax hikes for the rich.
The impact of the global crisis has been cushioned to some extent in France by a relatively generous social security system and a large number of protected public sector jobs.
But there has been a wave of plant closures and layoffs since the crisis began to bite last year, with 106,800 private sector jobs destroyed in the last three months of 2008, according to national statistics office INSEE.
(Writing by James Mackenzie)