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Effifel tower dark as striking utility workers cut power

Striking workers at France's electric and gas utilities marched through Paris and cut power to factories and shopping centers yesterday in a protest against a reform plan that would partially privatize national utilities.

In eastern France, protesters set up barricades outside a nuclear power plant in Saint-Alban-Saint-Maurice, letting only essential staff inside. In the southwest, protests plunged shopping areas and factories into darkness.

Since early April, members of the communist-backed CGT union have led a campaign of power cuts to derail the conservative government's reform, which will pave the way for listing the utilities' shares and selling some of them on the stock market.

Protesters have pulled the plug on the French presidential palace, the Eiffel Tower and the homes of many politicians.

The utility reform bill went before the National Assembly yesterday for a first reading.

Under the government's plan, the state will retain at least 70 percent of both utilities -- Electricite de France, or EDF, and Gaz de France, known as GDF. Leaders have promised the plan won't lead to full-out privatization.

But energy workers, backed by powerful trade unions and opposition parties, fear that opening the door to outside investment will ultimately threaten their jobs and retirement benefits.

Several thousand workers marched through Paris waving union flags to demand that the government back down. One banner read simply: "Drop the bill."

Workers waged small-scale actions across the country.

In the northwest Loire-Atlantique region, workers dispensed free electricity to hospitals and hooked up power again for cash-strapped families that hadn't paid the bills.

Unions are trying not to disrupt electricity supplies to private homes or inconvenience ordinary citizens.
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