Millions join day of protest over pay freeze over 3 deckys

FRANCE IN CRISIS

Encouraged by an opinion poll that showed substantial public support, France's public sector employees responded in huge numbers to a call by seven unions for a day of strikes and demonstrations yesterday.

Union sources claimed that 70 per cent of public sector workers - three and a half million in all - had taken part, seriously disrupting public transport. Education also suffered, with thousands of schools closed or providing nothing more than supervision for pupils turning up for classes. Other sources put the figure at 50 per cent of workers.

The Minister for Public Services, Jean Puech, criticised the one-day strike, the most extensive demonstration of union discontent since October 1986, as "immoderate", but Marc Blondel, secretary general of the Force Ouvriere confederation, which is particularly strong in the public sector, said that there would be further action if demonstrators' demands were not met.

The primary cause of the strike was the wage freeze announced by the Prime Minister, Alain Juppe, for 1996, although public-sector unions also took the opportunity to show their discontent about pension reform proposals and possible deregulation.

Mr Puech said his "door was always open for real social dialogue", and claimed that in spite of the freeze, wages in the public sector would rise next year by 1.4 per cent as a consequence of automatic seniority increases and existing agreements. He also said the total wage bill would rise next year by 3.2 per cent. Other politicians on the right took a more forthright view of the day of action, with some denouncing the conduct of "the privileged", an epithet angrily rejected by the unions.

Public opinion appeared to have been transformed in the space of a few days, with an opinion poll in Le Parisien newspaper showing 57 per cent backing for the unions, against 26 per cent disapproving. Even private- sector employees and the unemployed gave majority backing to the protests.

By contrast, a poll in Le Figaro a week ago had found an almost even split between those who said they felt solidarity with the unions and those who did not. In Paris, demonstrators took part in a march from the Bastille to a square near the Gare St Lazare. The procession stretched for two-and-a-half miles, and the number of demonstrators was put at anything between 22,000 and 100,000. A worrying aspect of the demonstration for the government was the united front put forward by the unions, which usually find it difficult to agree a common approach. Mr Puech said about 55 per cent of public sector employees had stayed away from work, but it was not possible to identify how many were on strike and how many would have gone to work if there had been transport.

The strike was solid among teachers, with the education ministry putting those who stayed away at 60 per cent and the unions claiming between 70 and 95 per cent observance. It was relatively lightly supported in the health sector, where only about 14 per cent of hospital staff stopped work, according to the authorities.

Enormous traffic jams built up on approach roads to Paris early in the day as drivers, encouraged by the news that police would not be issuing parking tickets, tried their luck and took their cars to work. Many used bicycles, in spite of air pollution created by several days of unseasonably warm and windless weather, and an intrepid few took to roller-skates.

Main line and underground train services were badly affected and few underground trains ran, though the service improved later in the day, and about one bus in four was operating. Air travel was worse hit than predicted, with several airports in the south of the country closed. Little post was delivered, and most government and municipal offices were closed. Staff at the meteorological office refused to issue weather forecasts.

President Jacques Chirac, on a visit to Spain, said that he was confident that France would meet the convergence criteria for European economic and monetary union laid down by the Maastricht treaty. The freeze on public sector pay is part of the strategy of cutting the budget deficit to the required level by 1997. The deficit must be reduced from its current 5 per cent of gross national product to 3 per cent if the country is to qualify for a European single currency.

In Washington Jean-Claude Trichet, governor of the Bank of France, expressed his "total determination" to maintain the stability of the franc. After a survey showed a fall in consumer confidence, rumours circulated in the bond markets that European central banks had intervened on foreign exchanges to support the currency. The Bank declined to comment.