News articles tagged with france

In the latest show of distress with fuel prices, Spanish truckers on Monday began a blockade of their country's border with France, lining up their rigs and slowing them to a crawl to protest the cost of fuel. The strike blocked the highway in both directions in southwestern France.

Sixty-seven vessels including thirty-nine tankers stranded at the harbor's entrance. Government officials, port managers and union representatives are yet to tally the costs of the strike. A 17-day walkout last year in Marseille alone cost Manutention Generale Mediterraneenne, the port's biggest cargo- handler, €1.5 million ($2.4 million).

Michelin - Workers at the factory in Toul (Meurthe et Moselle) began strike action after plans were announced to close it down. As well as occupying and blockading the plant with pickets of burning tyres the 826 workers also confined two managers to their offices during the four-day strike.

Workers at the hypermarket have been on strike since February the first.

The planned strike at France Télévisions against 'reforms' was successful. At France 3, seems to be targeted for privatisation as it is supposedly too critical of the current government 56% of all employees joined the strike, rising to 60% in regioal centres.

The strikes led to 50% of flight from Orly airport being cancelled with many others suffering delays of up to five hours. Marseille, Nice, Lyon and Toulouse airports were forced to cancel flights to Orly knowing that they would not be able to land. The Airport at Roissy was largely unaffected.

The Grand Littoral branch of Carrefour is the only one in the country to have continued action after the national one-day retail strike. As a result Grand Littoral has been entirely closed for nine of the last eleven days.

The youth was being held in an établissement pénitentiaire pour mineurs (EPM penitentiary establishment for minors.) in Meyzieu. This EPM was the first in the country and since its opening it has been plagued with problems. The prison authorities kept the news from other inmates until Monday "to avoid an explosion". So far five of the planned seven EPMs have been opened.

The strike was organised by the CGT CFDT and FO unions to pressurise management over pay and conditions, specifically part-time working and holiday working in a sector employing over 636,000 people.

The strike has been called at France Télévisions (France 2, France 3, France 4, France 5 and RFO). Workers at other public media services such as Radio France and TV5 have been called on to join the strike. The strike has brought together all eight of the media unions (CFDT, CFTC, FO, SNJ, SITR, SNJ-CGT, SNRT-CGT and Sud)

In Paris hundreds of taxis have occupied the place de la République to protest against the report. In Marseille taxi drivers have picketed roads going into the city, causing long tailbacks. In the small town of Dieppe 16 of the town's 17 taxis were striking. The strike is also being well-observed in Cannes and other towns and cities across France.

The decision was taken at a general assembly of staff held on Tuesday. According to a spokesman for the unions involved: SNJ, SNJ-CGT/SGLCE and Infocom-CGT, workers voted in favour of strike action with 4 abstaining and 5 against. They are demanding that current parent company LMVH and Alain Weill CEO of its prospective owners respect the conditions that were agreed in December.

80 of the 89 workers at the Montrouge site have been on strike since January 10th over plans to close the factory down. Workers have also occupied and blockaded the buildings in protest. There has been no explanation of why the 31 employees targetted were chosen.

Workers at Carsud, the bus transport system for the capital Nouméa and surrounding areas, went on strike over the dismisal of a colleague for gross misconduct. Workers began a general strike, rotating between different regions, on January 9th.

The, mostly female, striking workers were injured at the Miko factory in Saint-Dizier on Tuesday. Police were sent in after workers had confined the manager, Prakash Patel, to his office the previous day and occupied the site. The ice cream manufacturer recently announced a restructuring plan which will see 254 of the 493 employees lose their jobs.

Just outside of Paris at the Areva TD factory in Montrouge, 89 striking workers have been occupying and blockading the factory for four days.The movement began after management announced plans to close the factory, which produces electrical transformers. Workers are demanding large compensation payments, management is currently refusing to negotiate.

Teachers are striking as part of a wider civil service strike in protest at government attacks on virtually every aspect of their quality of life. Workers are defending their pay, their working week, job security, staffing levels, pensions and service requirements. Unions have called for the action which is expected to be widely observed.

Workers, with the support of the SUD and CGT unions have given notice of an unlimited strike to begin Monday.

Most demonstrations are to take place in the afternoon, with militants trying to convince as many students as possible during the morning to join demonstrations and mass actions.

According to company spokesmen the strike is being observed by 14.2% of workers at GDF (compared to 13.4% November 20th) and 13.5% at EDF (28%). There have been four strikes in the last six weeks, with observance reaching 60% in October. At the demonstration during the last strike a cortege of some 50 liberated EDF vehicules with their numberplates covered took part.