Flights hit by French strikes
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Passengers wait at Charles de Gaulle airport during a strike last summer.
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PARIS, France (Reuters) -- Travellers faced flight delays in and out of Paris Thursday as unions called airport staff out on strike, while medical workers across the country walked out in a separate protest over hospital funding.
The airport strike came just as French train services started returning to normal after Wednesday's one-day stoppage, part of a week of strikes in various sectors designed to pressure the government over economic reforms.
"At the moment the situation is normal," said a spokeswoman for the state-owned Paris airports company, where unions are on the warpath over plans for partial privatisation.
But she said there was a risk later of delays of about one hour on the hundreds of flights at the international Charles de Gaulle airport north of the capital, partly because fire and emergency services were expected to join the stoppage.
In a separate protest, doctors and hospital employees went on strike nationwide over lack of staffing and plans to change the way the hospital system operates, which some fear could force public hospitals into competition with each other.
"There's not enough of us. We're worn out and whenever there's an emergency, we're struggling," Marie-Helene Berlocchio, who works at a psychiatric hospital in the southern port city of Marseille, told LCI television.
Hospitals usually reduce services to a minimum but keep basic emergency services running in times of strikes.
A rail strike caused chaos for commuters and led to huge traffic jams around Paris on Wednesday, stepping up protests intended to put pressure on the government over pay, conditions and reforms.
The 24-hour strike by unions at SNCF railway company forced the cancellation of many inter-city and local trains. Traffic queues and frustration built up outside the capital as people tried to get to work by car instead of taking the train.
The strike followed stoppages on Tuesday by energy workers angered by plans to reform Electricite de France.
Copyright 2004
Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
