French lawyers on Friday staged a walkout, while Air France staff went on strike over pay, adding to a growing wave of industrial unrest that threatens to slow French President Emmanuel Macron’s reform drive.
Air France canceled one-quarter of the day’s flights as its pilots, stewards and ground crew press for a 6 percent pay rise.
And courts postponed hearings as hundreds of lawyers, clerks and magistrates stopped work across the country to protest judicial reforms, among a slew of changes by the ambitious 40-year-old president riling various sections of French society.
“The government’s plan at least has the benefit of being coherent — scrimping, cutting, sacrificing everything it can,” legal profession unions said in a joint statement ahead of Friday’s protests.
Law unions complain that the court shake-up, which aims to streamline penal and civil proceedings and digitize the court system, will result in courts that are over-centralized and “dehumanized.”
In the meantime, staff at state rail operator Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer are to begin three months of rolling strikes, two days out of every five, tomorrow night — just as many travelers are coming back from an Easter weekend away.
The next day, refuse collectors are to strike demanding the creation of a national waste service, energy workers are to strike urging a new national electricity and gas service, and Air France staff are to walk out again.
“The cost of living goes up, but not salaries,” Francois, an Air France employee, told reporters during a demonstration at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, saying a 6 percent raise represents “barely a baguette a day for a month.”
At Air France, 32 percent of pilots were set to join Friday’s walkout along with 28 percent of cabin crew and 20 percent of ground staff, according to company estimates.
However, while just 20 to 30 percent of long-haul flights were cut at Charles de Gaulle and Paris Orly Airport, at other airports such as Nice, as many as half of Air France flights were canceled.
The French state owns 17.6 percent of the carrier as part of the Air France-KLM group, Europe’s second-biggest airline, which has been plagued by strikes and labor disputes in its French operations in recent years. Eleven trade unions have already staged two Air France strikes on Feb. 22 and March 23 seeking a 6 percent salary hike, with two more planned on Tuesday and Saturday.
Unions argue the airline should share the wealth with its staff after strong results last year, but management insists it cannot offer higher salaries without jeopardizing growth in an intensely competitive sector.
“To distribute wealth we have to create it first,” chief executive Franck Terner told Le Parisien newspaper.
Air France is set to bring in a 0.6 percent pay rise from today and another 0.4 percent increase from Oct. 1, along with bonuses and promotions equivalent to a 1.4 percent raise for ground staff — seen by unions as grossly inadequate.
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