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Crippling strike: End in sight
23/11/2007 07:30 - (SA)
Elaine Ganley
Paris - A transport strike that has crippled France for nine days in a challenge to President Nicolas Sarkozy's reform agenda is in its final throes after rail workers around the country voted to return to work on Friday.
The collapse of the strikes a day after the start of negotiations smacked of defeat for labour unions - and could clear the way for the president's ambitious programme for France.
In 42 of 45 morning meetings on Thursday, rail workers voted to return to work on Friday, a trend that continued in the afternoon, union officials said.
The development was good news for travellers. Parisians stung by a subway strike have walked or used bikes and scooters to get across town.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon called on rail workers to restart traffic "completely and without delay". He thanked the French for their patience and unions for their "responsible attitude".
It can take days to return the vast rail system to full speed. Both the SNCF train authority and the RATP which runs Paris public transport indicated there would be improvements on Friday but nothing close to full service. Pockets of resistance remained in southern France where strikers held out.
"We seem to be moving toward a total return to work by the weekend," said Didier Larrigualdie, head of the Workers' Force union at the RATP.
SNCF spokesperson Julie Vion said a "dynamic" of returning to the job was in place.
The turnaround began on Wednesday night after a first round of talks with unions protesting Sarkozy's plans to do away with retirement privileges reserved for rail workers and several other sectors. The reform is seen as essential to modernising the economy, and saving the pension system.
Strikes 'were useful'
Workers were expecting generous concessions during the talks, to conclude before the end of December.
Sarkozy, elected in May, has held firm on his promise to reform France from top to bottom with economic, social and political changes to make the country more competitive.
However, political rivals fear that Sarkozy will dismantle labour protections considered part of the French way of life and scrupulously watched over by unions. The reform in question was one small but crucial part of the whole.
"The political gain for Sarkozy is completely clear," said sociologist Guy Groux, of the prestigious Institute for Political Science in Paris. The president's electorate, he said, "will see a move of firmness" and a break with the past when reform plans folded under strike pressure.
But unions apparently cannot be counted out.
The rail strikes were useful, Groux said, because "the unions were able to get their demands on the negotiating table in a very public way".
Sarkozy faces other protest movements, from students to civil servants who have demanded talks over salary hikes before the end of the month.
Some 3 000 students marched on Thursday through Paris to protest an already passed law that opens the way for private funding at universities, and students fear, selectivity in a system renowned for its open-door policy. Students, backed by leftist unions, have blocked dozens of universities for weeks.
'Change is indeed on the way'
The special retirement reform that triggered the transport strikes struck a special chord. Under the plan, which concerns about a half-million people, employees will have to work for 40 years to qualify for full pensions compared to 37.5 years currently.
Previous governments have reformed the pension system in increments since 1993 but left the special retirement benefits alone. Trying to change it in 1995 led to a three-week wave of strikes widely considered the worst since the protests of May 1968 that shook the government of then-President Charles de Gaulle.
Political scientist Dominique Reynie was sceptical as to whether the end to the rail strikes represented a real victory for Sarkozy.
The strikers' lacked the backing of the French, polls have shown, and their position had become untenable, he said.
"The French don't accept the special retirement package not because they are for reform but because they are against privilege," Reynie said, saying the rail strikes were not the ultimate test of the president's ability to bring about change.
However, the French prime minister, addressing a convention of French mayors on Thursday, suggested that the rail strikes showed that change is indeed on the way.
- AP
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