French strike chaos widened yesterday a week before the soccer World Cup, with airport workers joining stoppages by Air France pilots, and railway staff threatening to add to transport pandemonium.
As pilots on the third day of strike went into talks with Air France management, there was chaos in the country's main international airport due to stop-work protests by ground staff.
Air France, which last week announced its first profit in seven years, cancelled 83 per cent of its long-distance flights. And stranded Air France passengers, transferred to the main terminal at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport, north of Paris, to be switched onto foreign airlines, faced pandemonium as baggage-handlers, technical staff and airstrip employees walked off the job over pay and conditions.
Rail traffic was cut by up to 30 per cent yesterday in the southern Cote d'Azur region and a ticket-inspectors' strike tomorrow will cause the cancellation of half the high-speed TGV trains running between Paris and northern France.
In Paris, the communist-led CGT trade union called a strike today on the underground Metro and RER commuter service, but the RATP Paris rail authority said the stoppage would cause little disruption as other unions were not taking part.
There were signs of progress, however, on the Air France front with Mr Jean-Charles Corbet, head of the airline's main pilots' union, the SNPL, emerging from strike talks saying: "We are moving forward."
The pilots oppose Air France plans to save 500 million francs (£61 million) on payroll as part of a three-billion-franc cost-saving scheme intended to help the company invest in extra planes and pilots as worldwide competition mounts due to deregulation.
Stepping into the dispute yesterday, the government said it did not want to see a settlement that would harm the airline's economic future.
Almost 25,000 security personnel are to be deployed on a daily basis during the World Cup as France beefs up security to counter terrorism, hooliganism and crime, the government said yesterday.
The Interior Minister, Mr Jean-Pierre Chevenement, stressed that "security is essential to the success of the event".
Some 7,000 police will be on hand each day, Mr Chevenement said, along with 8,000 paramilitary gendarmes, 2,000 anti-terrorist troops and 2,500 soldiers deployed at sensitive points and around public utilities.