France Crippled As Public Sector Joins Rail Strike

By ED HARRIS

FRANCE was today facing a huge escalation of the transport strikes that have paralysed its cities as public sector workers joined the dispute.

In a serious challenge to Nicolas Sarkozy’s programme of economic reform, defiant rail workers voted to extend their crippling strike into a seventh day.

Their action, in protest at the president’s plan to scrap full public sector pension rights, overlaps with a one-day walkout today by civil servants from postal workers to teachers. Public sector workers object to Mr Sarkozy’s plan not to replace some retiring civil servants in a bid to cut costs.

“The mobilisation will be strong. I am not overjoyed and I know that the French people are starting to get fed up,” budget minister Eric Woerth told the newspaper Le Parisien.

School closures caused by the teachers’ strike added to working parents’ headaches, and students blocked access to buildings at dozens of campuses across France. Some high school pupils were also taking part in today’s demonstrations.

Flights could also be disrupted as air traffic controllers at Paris’s second airport Orly and in Marseille warned they might hold a 24-hour strike. There were expected to be no newspapers at news stands because of a one-day strike by distributors unhappy over reform of their highly regulated sector. France’s main energy union has also called a 24-hour strike in response to the pensions reform.

State rail operator SNCF said the number of people on strike was falling but the walkout continued to disrupt services.

SNCF said roughly half its high-speed TGV trains would be running but the Eurostar to London would run normally.

Trains between Paris and the city’s air- ports were expected to be severely disrupted, as were Metro and bus lines.

“Civil servants join a conflict that is running out of breath,” business daily Les Echos claimed in its front-page headline.

The hard-line Sud Rail union disputed that view yesterday, saying there had been strong participation.

Opinion polls show the rail strike is unpopular with most French voters but the government is also under pressure to show it is working for a breakthrough.

The government says it will not budge on the main points of its plan to overhaul the system of “special regimes”, under which some people, including rail workers, can retire after contributing for two and a half years less than is usual.

Talks with rail unions are due to re-open tomorrow. French media have quoted economy minister Christine Lagarde as saying the strikes were costing France up to 400 million euros (Pounds 290 million) a day..

(c) 2007 Evening Standard; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.