The lorry-drivers' strike which enraged France's European partners appeared to be ending last night, five days after French truckers laid siege to oil refineries and highways across the country to press their demands for higher pay and better working conditions.
It is estimated the strike has cost Irish exporters up to £20 million, and this weekend hundreds of Irish hauliers are entering France again to try to meet the backlog of orders which have built over the week from French and Spanish customers.
The Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA) says its members will be looking for compensation from the French authorities for the disruption caused.
The ending of the strike was signalled when the pro-Socialist CFDT trade union, whose militants manned two-thirds of the 150 road-blocks still standing yesterday morning, signed an agreement with the UFT and Unostra trucking management federations at 3 p.m. Almost at once, truckers lifted blockades at the freight ferry terminal in Calais and around Le Havre. Other barriers were dismantled in Brittany, Normandy, Alsace and the Alps.
Although two other trade unions opposed the accord, officials hoped that all the roadblocks would disappear overnight. Truckers were thought unlikely to hold out in the cold over the fourday French holiday weekend.
The main concessions by trucking owners are a 6 per cent pay rise for lorry-drivers and four per cent for bus-drivers and office personnel, retrospective to October 1st. Trucking workers will receive guaranteed minimum monthly salaries, and the most qualified long-distance drivers will earn 10,000 francs (£1,176) a month for 200 hours' work in the year 2000.
The Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, emerges relatively unscathed from the first major crisis of his five-month government. But Mr Jospin's poor relationship with business management may suffer further from the perception that he sided with the drivers.
The Government has expressed confidence that the compensation claims of Irish truckers will be dealt with as quickly as the British claim.
Jospin vows swift action on last year's strike claims: page 12