- Title: FRANCE: Train strike in France likely to cause chaos
- Date: 28th March 2006
- Summary: CLOSE OF CLOCK
- Embargoed: 12th April 2006 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France
- Country: France
- Topics: Employment,Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA99364JEV5ITJVI05A2HSL5MAO
- Story Text: Transport chaos is forecast for France after workers began a 24-hour strike.
Employees of the State-run SNCF railway and RATP metro workers walked out at eight o-clock pm (1800GMT) on Monday (March 27).
They're demanding Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's conservative government withdraw a new youth job contract.
On Tuesday students, school children and workers have organised marches in many French cities, while the trade unions have called for a general strike which is expected to severely disrupt public transport with many trains, buses and flights cancelled and only one in two Paris metros expected to run.
Two in three TGV trains should run from Paris but only one in three near Marseille, Grenoble and Chambery. The Eurostar and Thalys should run as usual.
Two RER (Paris metropolitan and regional rail system) express trains in five are scheduled on Line A but the interconnection in Nanterre-prefect will be suspended. On the RER B line, two express trains out of five should run normally but the interconnection in Gare du Nord station will be entirely disrupted.
At Saint Lazare staion, some commuters said that they were used to the strike routine and prepared for the worst.
"I'll walk to go to work, I'll walk 5 or 7 kilometres, we are used to it now and but it is too much and one day strike is completely useless because the government already made its decision (to cling to the First Employment Contract), said Patricia a commuter.
Some others were slightly upset like Eric who said he will have to take his car and get up earlier tomorrow morning.
"We'll see tomorrow morning how everything goes and maybe I'll get up earlier, I'll take my car and I'll leave at 06.30 or 07.00am, we'll see", he said while waiting for his train at Saint Lazare station.
Many commuters think that a one-day strike will not change anything and that Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin will stick to his decision to maintain the CPE (First Job Contract).
The row over the First Job Contract, which allows employers to fire people under 26 without giving a reason during a two-year trial period, is one of the biggest crises in Villepin's 10-month administration. Villepin ignored the unions when he rammed a law on the new First Job Contract (CPE) through parliament, despite reservations from his ministers and the ruling Union for a
Popular Movement (UMP) party which Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy leads.
The government wants to make France's rigid labour laws more flexible in a bid to boost economic growth and cut unemployment in a world characterised by increasing globalisation of markets. But many French people reject an erosion of what they call their social rights and are willing to defend that in public protests that are part of the country's tradition going back to the revolution of 1789 that created the first republic.
Mass protests by trade unions, students and school children are due across France on Tuesday (March 28). - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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