Flights set to resume as strike ends

THE nationwide strike by French air traffic controllers is due to end at 6.30 this morning with flights from Ireland to France expected to resume immediately.

More than 1,000 passengers on Aer Lingus, Ryanair and Air France flights had been affected by the 32-hour protest, part of a nationwide campaign to protect public services.

All the airlines were expected to put on either more flights or use bigger planes to cope with the backlog caused by the strike.

Only a handful of airlines were able to use French airspace during the stoppage and thousands of Irish and British passengers were stranded as a result.

Irish lorry drivers were also hindered when their French counterparts staged a series of protests along routes to Channel ports as part of a pay dispute.

However, the French hauliers’ plan to shut down the country’s road system and block ports was thwarted when police confiscated vehicles and driving licences and halted the disruption.

Authorities ordered the use of cranes to shift roadblocks as the dispute threatened to escalate. Earlier, truckers had sealed off the port of Le Havre and blocked the Normandy port of Caen as well as the town of Lille.

There were reports last night that some lorry drivers had set up new blockades in an attempt to create more disruption but there were no widespread roadblocks. the Irish Road Haulage Association had no reports of their members on the Continent experiencing major difficulties.

French rail workers also downed tools to demand more pay, job security and better pensions. Nurses, postal and power workers and bus drivers as well as Air France and France Telecom joined in the nationwide protest.

France’s powerful CGT union helped organise the strike, which included demonstrations in many cities nationwide. The protest amounted to one of the first serious challenges to the five-month-old government of centre-right Premier Jean-Pierre Raffarin, which has made a priority of selling off the state’s stake in many French companies.