As a national transit strike stretched into its second week, arsonists disrupted high-speed train services on four main routes on Wednesday. Government officials called the fires a "coordinated act of sabotage."
The early morning outbreak of fires on the electrical lines supplying the TGV high-speed trains happened hours before talks between transit union and government officials. The negotiators met for more than four hours and agreed to continue on Monday, while strike-weary travelers endured the eighth day of a walkout with no end in sight.
The fires raised the question of whether the striking unions were losing control of their most militant members. Top union officials condemned the attacks and insisted that there was no proof of union involvement.
Bernard Thibault, the secretary-general of the Confederation Generale du Travail, a powerful union, said such attacks during a strike were "certainly designed to bring discredit to the profession."
Government officials also condemned the fires. They stopped short of blaming the unions.
State-owned rail operator SNCF said the fires were ignited between 6:10am and 6:30am on routes linking Paris with eastern France, the western Atlantic coast, the north and the southeast. SNCF officials also reported vandalism to rail signal systems, including burning rags stuffed in signal boxes.
Some SNCF workers, who operate other long-distance and regional lines as well as the high-speed lines, voted on Wednesday in several big cities to suspend the strike.
Workers in Normandy and Nantes, however, vowed to go on.
On Tuesday, Francois Chereque, the secretary-general of another major union, the CFDT, was forced to flee a rally after upset members surrounded him to protest the union's support of negotiations.
Railway officials said the number of strikers was falling: about one in five workers was absent on Wednesday, they said, compared with about three in five when the strike started last week.
But the reality of the French train network is that a minority of workers can disrupt most services.
By afternoon, the SNCF was predicting more limited transportation services yesterday, though with signs of improvement.
It said two-thirds of the high-speed trains and three-fourths of Metro and suburban trains would be running.
The Montparnasse train station in Paris was the scene of another protest on Wednesday, with thousands of tobacco sellers marching toward the National Assembly to demand a softening of anti-smoking measures scheduled to take effect in January.
Strikes and walkouts -- by firemen, teachers, weather service employees, stagehands and others -- are taking a toll.
Patrice Crueize, the owner of L'Entracte, a bar and restaurant near the Opera Garnier in Paris, was infuriated.
"We've lost something like 40 to 50 percent of our sales since the beginning of the strikes," he said. "People don't take time to drink or to eat anymore."
The Gymnase Theater in Paris also has been hard hit.
A one-man show with Francois Pirette opened there Oct. 3, but he has been repeatedly absent.
"It's the fifth time he cancels his show due to the strikes," said Jean-Pierre Gautier, one of the theater's directors. "He lives in western France."
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
UNWAVERING: Paraguay remains steadfast in its support of Taiwan, but is facing growing pressure at home and abroad to switch recognition to Beijing, Pena said Paraguayan President Santiago Pena has pledged to continue enhancing cooperation with Taiwan, as he and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed opposition to any unilateral change to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait using force, Japanese media reported on Saturday. Kishida yesterday completed a trip to France, Brazil and Paraguay, his first visit to South America since taking office in 2021. After the Japanese leader and Pena spoke for more than an hour on Friday, exchanging views on the situation in East Asia in the face of China’s increasing military pressure on Taiwan, they affirmed that “unilateral attempts to change the