French Unions Split On Next Strike Move

Buses, planes, schools, mail and administrative offices were running as usual after the 24-hour protest spearheaded by France's civil servants to protest at feared job cuts and record unemployment. SNCF railways said there were lingering disruptions, mainly around Marseille and Montpellier in the south.

Emboldened by the strikes, the Communist-led CGT union called a day of unrest around the November 15 1995, anniversary of a welfare reform plan unveiled by Prime Minister Alain Juppe.

The plan helped trigger a 24-day wave of strikes.

But other unions failed to follow suit.

"The aim is not to get people in the streets for the pleasure of getting them in the street," said Nicole Notat, head of the pro-Socialist CFDT, France's biggest union.

 

She said she preferred to mount specific protests for threatened groups -- like defence workers, textile workers or pensioners -- and urged a meeting of all unions to discuss future cooperation.

"We've had enough of competition, these little attacks, this back-stabbing," she told Europe 1 radio. Notat, who did not back last year's strike wave, was booed and jostled at a march on Thursday where many accused her of being a Juppe stooge.

The centre-right government played down the extent of the strike, saying only a third of workers stayed at home against 57 per cent for a similar day of action by France's five million civil servants last October.