France faced a second day of paralyzed public transport yesterday as two rail unions continued to strike over planned pension reforms and services only slowly started to resume.
Commuters faced a day of struggle on Thursday as the rail network ground to a halt, and Paris metro and bus systems were reduced to a skeleton service. Many workers chose to stay at home, or walked or cycled to the office.
With two out of eight train unions calling for a 24-hour extension of Thursday's strike, the French state rail company SNCF warned that services would be "very disrupted" yesterday morning as it worked towards resuming normal services.
In Paris the metro and urban rail body RATP said that one metro train in two was operating, two out of three buses, but two of the main suburban commuter lines had yet to resume service.
"Operations are better than expected," a company official said.
SNCF said early yesterday only one-third of Paris regional trains would be running in the morning, rising to two-thirds in for the evening rush hour.
The company said it aims to resume full service for fast TGV and regular trains departing from and arriving in Paris by 4pm, with one-third of trains running in the morning.
It expected to have only one-third of trains traveling between regions operating in the morning, with two-thirds operating in the afternoon.
Disruptions yesterday could affect the rugby World Cup action in Paris, where France were to play Argentina for third place ahead of today's final between South Africa and England.
Last night's match was at the Parc de Princes stadium in southwest Paris -- a venue heavily reliant on metro lines.
SNCF assured English rugby supporters that Eurostar services between England and France were running normally yesterday, however. Around 60 percent of Thaylys fast trains to Belgium and the Netherlands were running, it added.
On Thursday, the capital's new system of public bicycles, the Velib, broke all previous records, clocking up 135,000 journeys by early evening as many Parisians chose peddle-power to beat the strike, according to official figures.
Tourists found several Paris museums shut, including the Musee d'Orsay and most of the Louvre, while the Opera de Paris and Comedie Francaise theatre canceled evening performances.
Police said 150,000 people turned out at demonstrations nationwide on Thursday to oppose the pension reforms planned by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The figure in Paris was 25,000, union organizers said.
Defeated opposition Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal said the strikes showed the "growth and confidence" promised by Sarkozy had turned into "mistrust and arrogance."
The Socialist party also suggested that the presidency chose to announce Sarkozy's divorce from his wife Cecilia on the same day as the strike in order to deaden its media impact.
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS