Strike lifted at France's Pompidou Centre

(Musée national d'Art moderne)

Workers at Paris's Pompidou Centre on Thursday suspended a strike that has shut down France's top modern art museum for more than three weeks, management and unions told AFP.

Management said the museum was due to open Thursday afternoon for the first time since November 23, the date of the beginning of the strike which was copied for a time at several other national museums and monuments.

The strike was called by unions representing culture ministry workers to protest plans to trim the civil service by replacing only half of all retiring employees. Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand has refused to back down.

A representative of the CGT workers' union said Pompidou Centre staff voted to suspend the strike at a meeting on Thursday morning but the union planned to call another strike next month.