France faces more disruption today from public sector strikes against government plans to tighten up on state pension conditions.
Hospitals, schools and postal services will be affected as civil servants - a quarter of France's workforce - continue their industrial action following a week of transport strikes that crippled rail, sea and air links.
The transport services were not expected to suffer this time round.
The latest industrial action signals a second, tougher phase in the pensions stand-off, after Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's centre-right government scored an early victory by enlisting the support of two moderate unions.
The main proposal is to make people work longer to qualify for a full pension. Public sector employees would have to work 40 years from 2008, instead of 37.5 as at present, matching the private sector. And all would be expected to work 42 years from 2020.
Mr Raffarin's determination to push through reform of the country's "pay-as-you-go" pensions system has provoked the biggest challenge to the government since it took office a year ago, with mass demonstrations last Tuesday bringing more than a million people onto the streets.
The CFDT - France's second largest union - and the smaller CGC accepted Mr Raffarin's offer to modify the pension plans and lifted their opposition last Thursday.
But the two unions have relatively few members in the public sector, dominated by the Communist Party-linked CGT and leftist Force Ouvriere. These have called a mass demonstration against the reforms for next Sunday, May 25th.
AFP