French strikes cause travel chaos

MORE than 1,200 Irish passengers to and From France were affected yesterday as local protests mounted against government plans to force people to work for longer to earn a full pension.

However, Aer Lingus yesterday said all the passengers had been accomodated on other flights

Strikes hit French air traffic, schools and refuse collection yesterday.

A walkout by air traffic controllers grounded some 80% of the 4,000 flights which land or take off in France every day, while refuse collectors refused to empty Parisian bins for the second day running.

Unions estimated that up to 60% of teachers would join the strike, the seventh walkout by school staff in industrial action that has kept some children off school for weeks and disrupted exams.

Teachers are protesting against reforms that will mean many have to work past 65 for a full pension and also against plans to decentralise education funding which they fear will cost thousands of classroom assistant and other school jobs.

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin is keen to avoid the fate of France's last conservative government which lost power in 1997 after crippling strikes, which forced it to scrap pension reforms.

He has only two weeks to placate teachers before the bulk of "baccalaureat" secondary school exams start on June 12.

The government insists its reform plans are the only way to save the state-run pension system from a funding crunch when baby boomers start flooding in to retirement.

"We cannot retreat on the need for reform," said Philippe Douste-Blazy, vice president of the ruling UMP party. The reform is due to be rubber-stamped by cabinet today and enter parliament on June 10.

"Air France deplores the situation," said the carrier in a statement, adding the strikes had forced it to cancel two-thirds of its short-haul and medium-distance flights.

Orly international airport on the southern fringes of Paris was quiet in the morning, with travellers heeding advance warnings of disruption and staying away.

But further disruption looms, with transport and civil service unions calling for an open-ended strike from June 3.

"We have no more choice. We demonstrated, but we were not heard. So now we have our last weapon strikes. We are striking during the week so as not to hurt holiday-makers, but if nothing changes we will have to hit harder and for longer," said Patrick Malandin of the CGT/USAC union.