Police man queues at Paris airport
Officers brought in to ease holiday problems after talks to end security workers' strike break down
POLICE reinforcements were manning security queues at Paris Charles-de-Gaulle Airport this morning after negotiations to end the strike broke down.
Around 45 border police and gendarmes were brought in to work at terminal 2F as the strike entered its seventh day.
The officers are not allowed to work beyond the security screens as this needs special training but were manning queues which, according to reports, were stretching for more than 100m.
Despite the strike, no flights were cancelled at Roissy yesterday - although there were heavy delays.
At Lyon all scheduled flights departed, with some delays, and no trouble is expected by management there today. They again advised passengers that oversize luggage would not be allowed and said only one piece of hand baggage was permitted.
There was little disruption at Nice or Toulouse. At affected airports passengers were being advised to check in early.
A general strike in Belgium was causing knock-on disruption on the rail network in the north-east of France. The high-speed Thalys service was cancelled as were other services originating in Belgium. The Paris-London Eurostar is not affected.
The police deployment at Charles-de-Gaulle came just hours after President Sarkozy told his ministers he wanted "all necessary and timely measures" taken to ensure that people were able to set off on their holidays without too much trouble.
Moves to end the dispute collapsed after one union walked out of talks with the mediator and the private security firms. The CGT union's Christine Hamiami said the meeting was at a "total impasse" and said that instead of using police to break the strike it would be better for the government to get airport managements to make better use of the airport security tax that was levied on tickets. The strikers are calling for a €200 wage rise.
The Interior Ministry said 400 police were ready to step in in total although reporters at Roissy were told by officers that some of them had been brought back from time off.
On January 24 the National Assembly will debate a bill calling for a minimum service to be imposed on air workers - meaning they would have to tell managment 48 hours in advance if they were going to go on strike. This is already in force for rail workers. The pilots' union has called a four-day strike in February against the proposal.
