Anti-riots policemen arrive as striking taxi drivers block the traffic at Porte Maillot in Paris on January 26, 2016.
Dozens of flights were cancelled and access to airports and major cities blocked across France Tuesday as taxi drivers, air-traffic controllers and civil servants went on strike.
Taxis snarled traffic across France Tuesday and airlines canceled flights on the first big strike day of 2016. Taxi drivers, air traffic controllers and civil servants are all on strike, each with different demands.
Taxi drivers set fire to tires on the highway ring road around Paris, blocked the A7 highway near Marseille, and slowed access roads to Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports near Paris. Police arrested 20 taxi drivers in Paris, mostly near Porte Maillot on the western edge of the capital where riot police led a charge to displace a crowd of taxi drivers and extinguish burning tires, i-Tele television reported. By about 9:30am, traffic was moving again on the “peripherique” ring road.
The taxi drivers are protesting the proliferation of car services such as Uber. CGT Taxis issued a statement accusing the government of trying to “kill the profession with savage deregulation.” The union says 60,000 taxi jobs are at risk. A taxi strike last June 25 descended into violence as some Uber drivers were beaten and their cars burned.
France’s civil aviation authority asked airlines to cut their flights by 20 percent Tuesday as two unions representing air traffic controllers called for a 24-hour strike ending Wednesday morning to demand higher pay and pensions.
INFORMATION ON ALL STRIKES : Aeroports de Paris, which manages Orly and CDG, said travelers should check with their airlines and travel to the airport by train.
Air France says it will guarantee all long-haul flights today as well as 80 percent of short- and medium-haul flights, though it warned that ?last minute cancellations can’t be excluded. It’s offering customers with tickets the option to fly later this week without cost. Lufthansa canceled 10 flights between Germany and France today and EasyJet canceled 35.
The largest strike Tuesday involves a call by the CGT, Force Ouvriere, and Sud for 5 million workers in schools, hospitals and local government to stay off work.
They are demanding a return to indexed pay increases that were interrupted in 2010, as well as an end to planned spending cuts in France’s health care system and local governments. “Created in an environment of austerity, they threaten to destroy public jobs, perturb public services and worsen the conditions of public workers,” FO said in a statement.
The SNUipp, an association of teachers’ unions, said a third of primary school teachers had heeded the strike call. The Education Ministry says 13 percent are striking.
The freeze in automatic pay increases has cost civil servants 8 percentage points in the purchasing power of their salaries, FO says.
The unions are planning a march through Paris from Montparnasse to Invalides starting at 2 p.m.
Approximately one in five flights cancelled due to air traffic controllers’ strike.
Due to the taxi strike, access to Paris’s Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, as well as those of Toulouse, Marseille and Bordeaux, is greatly disrupted.
For up to date flight information for France in English, click here.
French police have made 20 arrests relating to the industrial action by taxi drivers, amid reports of burning tyres and scuffles.
Taxi strike “go slow” also causing severe traffic jams across France.
Taxi drivers are protesting at what they see as unfair competition from private hire cabs such as Uber.
The aviation strike is due to salary and job loss concerns. Taxi drivers on strike
Teachers on strike
Public servants on strike
Air Traffic Controllers on strike
#France
