French PM criticises rail strike

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/16/french-rail-strike

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The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, has refused to yield to the demands of rail workers who have been on strike for nearly a week over a planned reform of the sector.

The strike, set to continue on Tuesday, is one of the longest in years in France and has disrupted services, testing the resolve of President François Hollande's government to push through sometimes unpopular reforms.

The unions CGT and SUD oppose plans intended to prepare the sector for EU reforms aimed at bringing more competition to European transport routes. Less militant unions have dropped their opposition and returned to work.

The government and state-owned SNCF have had to mobilise special train and bus services to ensure students can attend annual end-of-year exams that began on Monday.

"This strike is irresponsible in the country's [current] state, on a day of exams. It's time to stop this strike," Valls, said on France Info radio.

Insisting the government would push ahead with the reform, he said he was "no strike-breaker" and would not force unions to end the strike, which he said they had a constitutional right to carry out.

The SNCF chief Guillaume Pepy said the strike had so far cost €80-100m. Many high-speed TGV connections were cut by 50% and only four in 10 inter-city trains were operating.

There were signs of weakening resolve however, with the proportion of railworkers on strike down to 14.7% on Monday, half the level at the outset last week.

Parliament is due to begin debating a bill on Tuesday that would bring SNCF, the rail operator, and RFF, the network owner, into the same holding company, although their operations would be kept separate.

Hollande's Socialist government says the move would give the sector a more coherent structure as France and other European countries prepare for liberalisation.

Unions fear that working conditions would suffer and want SNCF and RFF to be fully merged into one entity, as they were prior to 1997. They also want the state to take on €40bn (£32bn) in debt owed by the firms.