SIX tyre factory workers who ransacked a local council building in a protest over job losses have had their sentences downgraded by an appeal court.

The workers at the Continental factory in Clairoix in the Oise were among 200 people who took part in an attack on the sous-préfecture in Compiègne last April after their demands to halt the factory closure were rejected.

They were given suspended jail sentences of between three and five months last September but appealed.

A judge has now ruled that they should instead pay a fine of between €2,000 and €4,000 each for the damage caused.

The Continental six were the first workers to be charged after an outbreak of boss-nappings and other violent attacks last spring, as French employees took the law into their own hands in a bid to protect jobs.

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