French Transport Strike in 3rd Full Day

By JAMEY KEATEN

PARIS – Wavering resolve by unions sapped some momentum from France’s transport strike on its third full day Friday, while a standoff loomed over whether the walkout should end while workers and managers negotiate.

Many commuters again had to resort to foot, bicycle or roller-skates, or gamble on getting on one of the reduced number of buses, trains or subways operating across the country.

The strike, which began late Tuesday evening, centers on a protest over President Nicolas Sarkozy’s promise to strip away benefits that allow some public sector workers to retire earlier than most other workers with full benefits. The walkout has shaped up as the biggest labor test of Sarkozy’s six-month tenure.

Sarkozy has agreed to a leading union’s call for negotiations between workers and managers, under government sponsorship. But in a possible new source of tension, the labor minister said the government would not lead any talks until the strike ends. Unions want to continue the walkout during negotiations.

Transportation managers said more trains and subways were running Friday than Thursday, but service was still far short of normal – and many commuters grumbled about the morning squeeze and delays on public transit.

National rail operator SNCF said about 260 high-speed trains were operating, far fewer than the 650-700 on normal days but up from 150 on Thursday. Highways were only slightly more jammed with traffic than the daily average, the national highway information office said.

Only two subway lines in Paris were closed completely, and about one in three buses were running on average. Some trains were running on four of the five RER commuter rail lines.

Sarkozy has pledged to modernize France to better compete in the globalized world economy. But he faced the threat that discontent in other areas could combine with the walkout by transportation workers, snowballing into a broader protest movement.

Some commuters sided with Sarkozy, saying the reforms are needed, and decried the daily hassles caused by the strike.

“You have to do a lot of walking, spend a lot of time in train stations waiting, and running left and right” to catch trains, said civil servant Pascale Mathieu at Saint-Lazare station in Paris, as he waited for a train to the suburbs. “To avoid being late for work, you have to leave earlier – it’s really troublesome and bothersome.”

Meanwhile, a student protest of a university reform that allows for private contributions to schools – in addition to public funding – and tuition charges has appeared to gather steam. The students fear the reform will erode France’s guarantee of public education for all.

Nearly half of the country’s 85 universities experienced disruptions from protesting students, the UNEF student union said. Thursday evening, riot police removed some 200 students leading a sit-in at a university campus in Lyon. No injuries were reported, student groups said.

Next week, many student unions plan to line up with hospital workers and school administrators in strikes over Sarkozy’s plan to thin the public sector.

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Associated Press Writer John Leicester contributed to this report.