FRANCE: The French government's battle to reform the country's pension system turned into farce yesterday when deputies attempted to drown each other out in the National Assembly, the right singing the militaristic national anthem, La Marseillaise, and the left responding with the old socialist hymn, l'Internationale.
"This is not a singing class!" the speaker of the Assembly, Mr Jean-Louis Debré, shouted before briefly adjourning the session, which launched what promises to be a long debate over the law on pension reform.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of demonstrators were stopped by riot police just metres from the Assembly, on the Pont de la Concorde. When protesters began throwing tomatoes, cans and a few paving stones, the CRS responded with tear gas.
Yesterday's strike was the sixth in as many weeks, all sparked by the attempt to make public sector employees work 40 years rather than 37½ before full retirement benefits. Private sector employees already work 40 years, and the government is counting on growing public discontent to help it defeat the strikers. The status of railway and metro workers, who cause the most inconvenience, is not affected by the law on pension reform. In a sign that the government may be gaining ground, fewer railway workers and teachers participated in yesterday's industrial action. But transport was nonetheless severely disrupted across the country. Only one in three trains ran.
More than 100 flights to and from Orly airport were cancelled, as were all of Ryanair's flights in France. The unpredictability of transport strikes has drastically slowed economic activity since the beginning of May. Though 60 per cent of metro trains in Paris operated yesterday, commuters had no idea which lines would function, and so took their cars to work.
As a result, highways leading into the capital were backed up in a record 280km traffic jam between 8 and 9 a.m.
Marseilles was the city worst affected, with all tramway, bus and metro traffic halted, as well as ferries to Corsica and north Africa. No rubbish has been collected in Marseilles for a week.
And it's not over. Most of the transport unions said they would walk out again today. As he led the march from the Bastille to the Place de la Concorde, the head of the communist trade union CGT, Mr Bernard Thibault, said the government "is gambling they can wear us down", and vowed to continue the strikes.
In his address to the National Assembly, the Prime Minister, Mr Jean-Pierre Raffarin, said, "Courage, today, means not postponing, not making reproaches ... Courage today means acting to save the French model through reform. The Republic ... needs reform for its preservation."
The government won a small victory when teachers' unions announced they would not prevent baccalauréat exams taking place tomorrow. The threat was lifted only after the government agreed not to "decentralise" the jobs of school psychologists, doctors and social workers.
A handful of communist deputies have filed some 7,000 proposed amendments to the law on pension reform, and the debate is likely to extend long beyond the two weeks allotted. Mr Raffarin says he has all the time in the world, and will be happy to spend his summer holiday in the National Assembly.
Joe Humphreys adds:
Irish airlines have promised normal services to and from France today despite the threat of continuing industrial action. Aer Lingus, which suffered no cancellations yesterday, said its normal schedule would continue. Ryanair also said it would operate a normal schedule today, having cancelled 64 of its European flights to and from France yesterday, including three out of Ireland.
