A nationwide one-day strike gripped France yesterday, spreading transport woes and dealing Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin his first major test in implementing labor and economic reforms.
In the capital only around a third of suburban train services were running, and there were some cancelations on the bus and metro system -- but overall there was less disruption than expected.
The capital's transport authority last year put in place a system of "guaranteed service" in case of strikes, which appeared to be working.
PHOTO: EPA
France's civil aviation authority predicted that 175 short and medium-haul flights would be canceled from Orly airport south of Paris and 212 from Roissy Charles de Gaulle. No disruptions were expected on long-haul flights.
The situation was worse in other cities such as Marseille and Bordeaux, however, where most public transport was out of action.
The SNCF national rail company said that 40 percent of regional services were up and running as well as 60 percent of high-speed TGV intercity lines.
As well as transport workers, around half of teachers were also striking, and most post offices and government buildings and some banks remained shut. Most national newspapers failed to appear.
Five of the country's biggest trade unions called the stoppage to protest policies Villepin's center-right government has brought in to invigorate France's sluggish economy and to push for public sector pay rises.
Demonstrations were planned in more than 140 towns and cities, with the largest leaving the Place de la Republique in Paris during the afternoon.
The unions behind the day of action were boosted by a poll showing they have the support of most of the French, who have already showed their dissatisfaction with President Jacques Chirac by rejecting a referendum in May to adopt a European constitution.
Villepin, 51, a suave and popular politician who gained an international profile during his time as foreign minister during the build-up to the Iraq War, was named by Chirac to lead the government following the referendum's failure.
Given the tough task of reducing 10-percent unemployment, he soon earned criticism from unions and left-wing parties for pushing through by decree a series of measures designed to make France's sclerotic labor market more flexible.
One of those -- a new job contract which gives small businesses a freer hand to hire and fire -- is the focus of much of the protesters' ire amid fears that it might bring an end to France's job-for-life culture.
The strike comes at a sensitive time for Villepin, who has been rocked onto the back foot by a crisis over the privatization of the state-owned SNCM ferry company serving Corsica and north Africa from ports on the Mediterranean coast.
Plans to sell off the heavily-indebted concern sparked days of violence in Corsica, a near-blockade of the island, and the shut-down of France's largest port of Marseille. Though action was taken over the weekend to re-open communications, the situation remained highly volatile.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver