Paris - Striking French airline pilots and flag carrier Air France began a fresh round of talks yesterday as the Transportation Minister, Mr Jean-Claude Gayssot, warned the pilots not to hold France and the World Cup hostage.
"France, the company [Air France] and the World Cup must not be held hostage. We must negotiate and we must break this logjam," Mr Gayssot told the National Assembly eight days before the June 10th start of the soccer championships in cities across the country.
The crippling strike grounded most Air France flights for the second day. Gayssot and Air France chairman, Mr Jean-Cyril Spinetta, said they would be flexible in the negotiations, the first to be held since the pilots walked off the job on Monday in a protest over planned salary cuts and a new lower pay scale offering less money to new recruits.
Public opinion has weighed in heavily against the pilots, who are among the best paid in the world despite the national airline having run up years of losses and 20 billion francs (around £2 billion) in taxpayer-financed bailouts in recent years.