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March 23, 2018

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Public sector workers strike in ‘warning shot’ for Macron

Public sector workers went on strike across France yesterday in a “warning shot” for President Emmanuel Macron against his multi-front reform drive, with canceled trains and flights causing travel headaches for thousands.

Many schools, day care centers and libraries were closed ahead of demonstrations planned for the afternoon, while other public services such as garbage collection were disrupted in Paris and other cities.

“The government needs to be paying much more attention to how things really are,” Force Ouvriere union chief Jean-Claude Mailly told BFM television, citing “serious worries” among public sector workers.

The walk-outs and demonstrations are the latest test of strength for 40-year-old centrist Macron as he pushes ahead with a new phase of his agenda to overhaul state rail operator SNCF and other public services.

Thousands of public servants had already staged a one-day strike in October against his plans to cut 120,000 jobs over his five-year term, as well as a pay freeze and a plan for more outsourcing and voluntary buyouts that unions say will remove job security.

France’s once fearsome unions have regularly forced governments into policy U-turns in the past, but Macron and his ministers have vowed not to yield.

More than 140 protests have been planned across France in total, with the biggest set to take place at the Bastille monument in Paris in the afternoon, where unions expect 25,000 demonstrators.

The Paris demonstration, bolstered by rail workers contesting plans to end the special status for new hires at the SNCF, is “a warning shot” against the proposed changes, said the UNSA rail union chief Roger Dillenseger.

Just two of every five high-speed TGV trains were running yesterday morning, and half of regional trains across France had been canceled.

Four Eurostar trains between London and Paris were canceled, as were about a quarter of the trains serving other foreign destinations.

Roughly a third of flights into and out of three Paris airports — Charles de Gaulle, Orly and Beauvais — were canceled, as were some flights in Montpellier, Nice and Marseille.

A quarter of teachers were striking on average across France, according to the largest SNUipp-FSU union, with up to 55 percent not heading into schools in the Seine-Saint-Denis region just north of Paris.

Rail unions have called for three months of rolling strikes starting April 3.




 

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