Another day of strikes for France

Two of France’s biggest trades unions the CGT and CFDT have called for wide-ranging strikes against reforms to the 35-hour week and pensions.

They oppose new laws relaxing the 35-hour week worked by anyone with a long-term contract in France.

They are also protesting against reforms to the pension system which will see the number of years required to work to qualify for a full pension go up from 40 to 41.

The SNCF and TER regional trains are running a skeleton minimum service.

Francois Chereque, head of CFDT, predicted the demonstrations would be bigger than on the last major day of strikes, May 22.

Unions said 700,000 marched against pension reforms then, while police put the figure at 300,000.

Bernard Thibault, head of CGT, said he expected over a million people to take part in demonstrations on Tuesday.

Train traffic was disrupted early in the day on regional networks in the South, but long-distance high-speed trains were running almost normally, as was urban transport in Paris.

Welfare Minister Xavier Bertrand will present a new bill to the cabinet on Wednesday reforming the 35-hour week, introduced 10 years ago when the Socialists were in power and denounced by the centre-right Sarkozy as an economic disaster.

Bertrand's proposal would open the way for negotiations at company rather than industry level on maximum numbers of overtime hours and compensation for them.

The unions say this would give greater power to bosses, who tend to be stronger in negotiations within companies than at industry level where they face the full weight of the unions.

Photo: Tendencies