French police yesterday fired water cannons to disperse scores of protesters blocking a northeastern oil depot, as pumps ran dry and unions stepped up strikes in a bitter battle over labor reforms.
With one-fifth of gasoline stations in France running low, police moved in to break a blockade at the depot of Douchy-les-Mines near the Belgian border that had been in place since Thursday last week.
“They cleared out all our barricades. The depot was unblocked without confrontation,” said Willy Dans, a spokesman for the local branch of the SUD union. “The police moved in quickly. They used water cannons. We got the feeling they were tense.”
Photo: AFP
Watched by about 80 striking workers, firefighters extinguished burning tires that were blocking roads and sending thick plumes of smoke billowing into the air.
Most gasoline stations in the area were empty, forcing motorists to hop over the border to Belgium to fill up, a photographer on the ground reported.
The blockades are part of a wave of social unrest that has seen thousands take to the streets in often violent protests against labor reforms proposed by French President Francois Hollande’s deeply unpopular socialist government.
“We have to fight” against the reforms, Dans said, adding he felt the movement had popular support.
On Tuesday, top union leader Philippe Martinez vowed to continue the strikes until the labor legislation is withdrawn.
At least six out of the eight refineries in France have either stopped operating or have reduced output due to strikes and blockades, and transport is further hampered by a rolling strike on the trains, causing chaos for commuters.
The social unrest has raised concerns for the smooth running of the month-long Euro 2016 soccer championships, due to start on June 10.
“It’s beginning to get to a critical point,” said Pascal Barre, who runs a logistics firm in Poincy, east of Paris. “We filled up at the end of last week and at the beginning of this week, but our drivers need to fill up again and it’s not possible.”
“If we can’t deliver to shops and supermarkets, it’s going to put France on its knees,” he said.
However, the government has started using its strategic oil reserves to counter the union blockades of its refineries, the Union Francaise des Industries Petrolieres (UFIP) said.
“Yes, a small quantity of the stock has been drawn. It was authorised by the government, only the government can authorize it,” UFIP spokeswoman Catherine Enck said.
UFIP president Francis Duseux told RMC radio that the industry had been using the strategic reserves for two days.
“Every day we use the equivalent of about one day of consumption. At worst, if the situation remains very tense, we can do this for three months,” he said.
In related news, workers at the hardline CGT union on Tuesday voted for a 24-hour strike at the Nogent-sur-Seine nuclear plant starting last night.
Workers at other nuclear plants were due to meet yesterday to decide on possible further strikes, he said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS