French unions took their battle against extending retirement from 60 to 62 to the courts yesterday, challenging orders to return to work the day after the senate passed the fiercely contested law.
Unions showed no sign of giving up the fight and have vowed more action in their months-long struggle against the bill, whose passage into law the government hopes will end protests that brought millions onto the streets.
The vote late on Friday all but sealed the reform, the centerpiece of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s agenda, and the government expects the text to be reconciled with a lower house version before being definitively adopted on Wednesday.
Many gas pumps have run dry because of panic buying and officials sought to reassure motorists at the start of the half-term school break. French Secretary of State for Transport Dominique Bussereau insisted motorway supplies were “perfect.”
Strike action by railway, metro and utility workers has eased, but all 12 French oil refineries are still affected and workers at the key Grandpuits site that supplies Paris took legal action against orders to return to work.
Riot police were sent in to clear pickets blocking the site early on Friday, but staff who had been ordered back to work downed tools again overnight after a judge ruled the government’s “requisitioning” had been illegal.
The requisition order can be issued by French authorities when they believe a strike poses a threat to public order. It compels strikers to return to work, under threat of prosecution.
However, a court in nearby Melun agreed with unions that the order was “a serious and obvious infringement on the right to strike and its implementation should be suspended,” a copy of the ruling showed.
The judge said the prefect, or the central government’s local representative, had erred by requisitioning virtually all the workers at the refinery, which meant the site was running normally.
The authorities immediately issued another requisition order at the plant that supplies the Paris region with 70 percent of its fuel, which the unions were appealing against yesterday.
Despite the senate passing the law, 63 percent of French still support two new days of action called for by unions on Friday and on Nov. 6, an opinion poll for Dimanche Ouest-France showed.
Nevertheless, 53 percent of French think that extending the date of retirement is acceptable, an Ifop poll on Thursday and Friday showed.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique