Angry French truckers demanding higher salaries and shorter working hours set up 140 blockades around refineries, fuel depots and on main highways yesterday, creating fuel shortages and traffic jams across the country. Irish exporters and hauliers face losses of nearly £2 million a day as a result of the dispute, but this could grow to £10 million a day if the strike is protracted.
Up to 3,000 fishermen and fish processors in Donegal could face lay-offs as early as the end of next week.
Five routes were blocked while the other 135 were filtrant - allowing cars, but not trucks, to pass through after a delay. The strikers used trucks, cars, tents, caravans, oil drums, tyres, logs and wire fencing to block traffic.
Soldiers were deployed at several oil refineries and fuel depots, and many local authorities requisitioned petrol stations to ensure that hospitals, schools and police do not run out of fuel.
French borders and seaports were specifically targeted. The cross-channel terminals at Calais and Boulogne were paralysed by the strikers. Cherbourg port closed to passenger and freight vehicles last night, leaving hundreds of people stranded in the town. The Normandy port of Le Havre was closed to freight but still remained open to passenger vehicles.
Paris was the only large city that was not blockaded, apparently because police prevented truckers from grouping together. The Channel tunnel and several fuel depots guarded by police or the army were also spared.
The Communist Transport Minister, Mr Jean-Claude Gayssot, met leaders of the largest haulage employers' association, the UFT, in hopes of persuading them to return to the negotiating table.
Last night Mr Rene Petit, the head of the FNTR, the largest group in the UFT, said the employers' association would resume talks tomorrow morning.
Up to 3,000 fishermen and fish processing workers could be laid off by the end of next week in Co Donegal if the French strike continues, according to the chief executive of the Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation, Mr Joey Murrin.
The chairman of the IFA's national sheep committee, Mr Michael Holmes, estimates his sector is losing some £2.5 million a week.
Pandoro is today expected to announce whether it will continue its Rosslare-Cherbourg ferry service. The company is understood to be considering rerouting its service through Spain.
The Irish Road Haulage Association called on the European Transport Commissioner, Mr Neil Kinnock, to intervene as "an impartial mediator". It also asked him to set up a compensation fund for stranded hauliers and firms which would suffer losses. However, the Commission has gone no further than appealing to French employers and unions to return to negotiations. Mr Kinnock has been in contact with the French government about speeding up the system of compensation for hauliers and businesses still unpaid as a result of last year's strike.
But Commission sources do not believe a common compensation fund along the lines proposed by the IRHA and Irish MEP Mr Jim Fitzsimons has any chance of backing at the Council of Ministers.