French power workers on strike
PARIS, France (Reuters) -- French power workers downed tools Tuesday and commuters feared chaos from a looming rail strike at the start of a week of protests intended to put pressure on the government over pay, conditions and reforms.
Workers at Electricite de France staged protests across the country and planned to lower power output in a 24-hour strike against privatization of state utilities. Blackouts were not expected in French homes.
A 24-hour strike for more pay by railway workers from 8 p.m. (1900 GMT) was sure to have a larger impact on the public. Unions said only two in three high-speed TGV trains would run and only one in five trains would operate in parts of Paris.
Workers at the state-run SNCF railway, which employs 180,000 people, want a pay rise of up to six percent and are angered by the company's plans to shed 3,500 jobs this year.
The strike also targets a demand by President Jacques Chirac to establish a minimum transport service during strikes, which the unions see as a curb to their right to down tools.
Strikes over pension reforms brought transport to a halt in Paris last year and the conservative government of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin is wary of the impact of protests before regional elections in March.
But opinion polls suggest a majority of French people want a guaranteed minimum service during strikes and Transport Minister Gilles de Robien said the government would press on with its plans.
"It is a presidential priority," de Robien told Europe 1 radio. "We will work on a constitutional requirement: how to assure public services even in times of strike without attacking the right to strike, which is a constitutional right."
Barely a week after Raffarin reaffirmed that creating jobs is his top economic priority and that his policies would allow the country to benefit from the nascent economic recovery, he also faces a 24-hour strike by hospital workers and doctors' unions on Thursday over working conditions and staff shortages.
The strikes are a warning rather than a major irritant but Raffarin will watch them carefully because the regional elections are widely seen as a referendum on his performance.
The power strike had reduced EDF's total power production by about seven percent and affected six nuclear power stations, a spokesman for the striking CGT union said.
The unions are protesting against Raffarin's plans to change the legal status of state-owned EDF, a move widely seen as a precursor to privatization. Unions fear partial flotation will herald an all-out sale of the utility.
They have said they do not want to cause power blackouts.
Raffarin reiterated last week the government's plans to change the utilities' legal status this year. The head of EDF said he was confident the change would happen before July 1.
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