The strikes are the latest episode in an escalating campaign by France’s powerful unions to force Raffarin’s year-old center-right government to withdraw a pensions reform bill, expected to come before parliament next month.
Some 80 per cent of flights to and from French airports were cancelled due to the 24-hour work stoppage by controllers and other airport staff, according to the national civil aviation authority DGAC.
The capital’s two main airports, Charles de Gaulle and Orly, were unusually empty, with airport officials saying 70 percent of flights in and out of the two hubs had been called off.
The controversial pensions draft, due to be approved at a key cabinet meeting on Wednesday, calls for workers — especially those in the extensive public sector — to delay their retirements in order to receive a full pension.
The government says reform is needed if the existing “pay-as-you-go” pension system is to survive a looming demographic crunch, as the number of those working and making contributions shrinks in relation to those in retirement.
France’s 800,000 teachers staged their ninth walk-out since the start of the school year, with pension reform just one issue on a long list of grievances they have against the government.
The teachers are also opposed to a decentralization scheme, under which 100,000 posts held by maintenance staff, technicians and school doctors will no longer depend on the education ministry but on regional authorities — a change deeply opposed by unions who fear the break-up of a national teaching system.
Unions put strike participation at 60 percent, while the government put the figure at about 40 per cent.
At least 25,000 teachers and school staff staged a mass rally in Paris — 50,000 according to unions — as tens of thousands marched in Marseille, Toulouse, Nice, Toulon, Grenoble and other cities across the country.
Hospital, postal and telecommunications workers also stopped work Tuesday. Paris garbage collectors walked off the job for the second straight day.
The popular Musee d’Orsay was forced to close Tuesday due to a strike by employees, officials said. The government showed no signs of giving in, with Education Minister Luc Ferry saying, “We will not shy away from our obligations and we will institute these reforms.”
Social Affairs Minister Francois Fillon also stood firm, telling parliament the time for negotiations was over.
The protests could peak next week when train and Paris metro workers stage an open-ended strike from June 3 — even though as the beneficiaries of special pensions regimes, they are not affected by the government’s bill.—AFP