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A nationwide one-day strike in France has disrupted travel and business
and dealt the first major challenge to the economic program of Prime Minister
Dominique de Villepin.
Official figures showed turn-out from the public sector, with 30 percent
of railway staff and teachers, 23 percent of electricity workers and between
15 and 30 percent of post office staff joining the stoppages.
Demonstrations were staged in cities from Marseille in the south to Le Havre
in the north, with the largest demonstrations drawing tens of thousands in the
capital.
Unions put the total number of protesters at just over a million, but police
said about 440,000 people had taken part.
Clashes broke out between police and protesters at a rally in the Corsican
port of Ajaccio, where tension has been running high over the planned privatisation
of a state-owned ferry company.
Around a third of suburban trains were running in Paris with some cancellations
on metro and bus services.
The situation was worse in Marseille and Bordeaux, where most public transport
was out of action.
There were cancellations and delays of up to two hours at Paris’s two
airports.
Most national newspapers failed to go on sale because of action by print-workers.
Union leaders claimed the day was a success.
"The government and employers have a few days to give tangible signs that
they have heard the message. We are already poised to start planning a follow-up
if the right response doesn’t come," said Bernard Thibault of the
General Labour Cofederation (CGT).
Five of the country’s biggest trade unions called the stoppage to protest
the reform policies of Mr Villepin’s centre-right government and to push
for pay rises.
Their main target was a new labour contract which makes it easier for companies
with fewer than 20 staff to hire and fire workers in their first two years of
employment.
The strike came at a sensitive time for Mr Villepin, who has been rocked by
the crisis over the National Corsica Mediterranean Company (SNCM) which operates
ferries between Corsica and north Africa and ports on the Mediterranean coast.
Plans to sell off the heavily indebted company sparked days of violence in
Corsica, a near-blockade of the island and the shut-down of the France’s
largest port, Marseille.
