- Title: FRANCE: French police and strikers clash at refinery
- Date: 23rd October 2010
- Summary: GRANDPUITS, FRANCE (OCTOBER 22, 2010) (REUTERS - ACCESS) ( *** AUDIO AS INCOMING *** ) STRIKING WORKERS IN LINE BLOCKING ENTRANCE TO GRANDPUITS REFINERY MEDIA WITH POLICE STANDING OPPOSITE SCUFFLING UNDERWAY BETWEEN POLICE AND PROTESTERS AT GRANDPUITS ENTRANCE STRIKERS BEING PUSHED BACK POLICE AT ENTRANCE FURTHER SCUFFLES TO RIGHT OF ENTRANCE STRIKER BEING MANHANDLED BY POLICE OFFICER CAMERA SWINGS ROUND TO MAN ON GROUND SURROUNDED BY CROUCHING FIGURES REVERSE SHOT OF REFINERY ENTRANCE, AUDIO OF SIREN, MAN BEING CARRIED ON SHOULDERS BY TWO WORKERS MAN ON GROUND, WOMAN IN GREY COAT USES STETHOSCOPE PARAMEDICS LIFT MAN, NOW ON STRETCHER
- Embargoed: 7th November 2010 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France
- Country: France
- Topics: Domestic Politics,Energy
- Reuters ID: LVA2W4OZWDALJ29L8YB0CSL4QKRM
- Story Text: French police clash with striking refinery workers as they attempt to break up a human chain formed across the entrance to the Grandpuits refinery in protest at the government's pension reform plans.
French police clashed with striking refinery workers on Friday (October 22) who were protesting at the government's pension reform plans.
Although police ended a blockade of Total's Grandpuits oil refinery near Paris, the workers continued to block access to workers requisitioned by the French government to work at the refinery which has become one of the icons of unions' fight against pension reform -- and of the acute petrol shortages that have been its result.
Police could be seen pulling workers out of a human chain formed across the entrance to the refinery as workers refused to move.
At one point paramedics attended to an injured worker, who was carried away on a stretcher.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants the reform -- which would raise the minimum age of retirement to 62 from 60 and the maximum age for a full pension to 67 from 65 -- to be passed quickly in the hope that, in becoming law, it will take the steam out of protests.
The government resorted to a special measure to speed the reform bill's passage through the Senate, with a vote expected later on Friday as pressure built on Sarkozy to end the long-running impasse with the unions.
French unions dug in their heels on Friday with further strike action and a call for two more days of protests as a final vote on President Nicolas Sarkozy's unpopular pension reform drew near in the Senate.
Signalling their determination to keep fighting even after the reform has become law, France's six main unions called late on Thursday for a seventh and eighth day of protest action against the reform on October 28 and November 6. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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