World crisis spurs protest from French workers

Monday, May 11, 2009

World crisis spurs protest from French workers

By Michael Deibert

The Washington Times

PARIS | France's workers, never known to shrink from the barricades, are meeting the global economic crisis with strikes and protests.

Dockworkers at the English channel port of Le Havre, which processes nearly two-thirds of French cargo, recently cut the number of vessels loading and unloading there by half. A one-day strike earlier last month at Electricite de France SA, Europe's biggest electricity generator, plunged parts of the City of Light into darkness as production cuts occurred at two of the provider's nuclear reactors.

But these instances are more or less par for the course in France, a nation where union members heed the call to strike as a useful negotiating tool. In the past month, however, as France's jobless rate climbed to 8.6 percent, the country's penchant for mass action has taken on an undercurrent that some see as worrying and potentially explosive.

Please read the full article here.