- Title: FRANCE: French commuters face a second day of travel misery
- Date: 15th November 2007
- Summary: (BN07) PARIS, FRANCE (NOVEMBER 15, 2007) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SHOTS) TRAFFIC ON PARIS MOTORWAYS MORE TRAFFIC ROADSIGNS ON MOTORWAY TRAFFIC WITH SIGNS TO ORLY QUEUES OF CARS ON MOTORWAY BILLBOARDS ON ROAD SHOWING LENGTH OF QUEUE VARIOUS CARS ON MOTORWAY MORE CARS ON MOTORWAY EXTERIOR ST. LAZARE STATION TRAIN ARRIVING AT THE STATION WITH COMMUTERS GETTING OUT OF TRAIN. COMMUTERS
- Embargoed: 30th November 2007 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France
- Country: France
- Topics: Employment,Transport
- Reuters ID: LVAAN27V7ISAHSKBQZA9G1YOW2CQ
- Story Text: Transport and energy workers entered a second day of strikes on Thursday (November 15) in a fight over pension schemes.
By Wednesday night (November 14), unions and the government said they were prepared to hold three-way talks with companies in each sector to thrash out a deal, but the details had yet to be worked out and the transport strikes were set to continue.
"The conditions are in place so that all the trade unions can participate in the company and sector negotiations," French president Nicolas Sarkozy's spokesman David Martinon said in a statement.
Sarkozy has broad public support for the reform, which aims to bring generous pension provisions for about 500,000 public sector workers into line with those of other workers ahead of a general pension reform next year.
The streets of Paris again heaved with mopeds, bikes, cars and pedestrians as commuters tried to get to and from work without the usually efficient metro and bus system.
Only a handful of trains ran on Thursday and Paris's transport system operated reduced services. Some lines were less affected than predicted and strike participation was smaller compared with the previous stoppage on October 18.
The Paris-London rail link Eurostar will run as normal.
At the St. Lazare station, confused commuters looked for information from notice boards.
"I'm supporting them, they are fighting for a pensions system which has been in place for years", said one commuter, Bernard.
Strikes by energy workers cut about 12 percent of output at EDF nuclear plants and blocked ships and input at the Fos-sur-Mer gas terminal on Wednesday.
Sarkozy has said he will not back down on the main points of his plan to end the "special regimes" introduced last century to let workers with jobs deemed especially arduous to retire after 37.5 years of contributions, compared to 40 years for others.
Most unions have also stood firm, promising open-ended strikes and raising the prospect that the disruption could continue into next week when civil servants are due to stage a 24-hour stoppage to protest at state sector job cuts.
Both sides indicated they did not want a lasting conflict.
The powerful CGT union said it accepted company-by-company negotiations with management and government representatives, backing down from an earlier demand for national talks. Other unions, which met with Labour Minister Xavier Bertrand on Wednesday, said they were also ready for talks.
The head of the moderate CFDT union said he believed conditions were right for his rail workers to go back to work, but the federation of rail unions, which includes the CFDT's rail arm, called for the strike to continue during talks. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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