France This article is more than 8 years oldFrance hit by day of protest as security forces fire teargas at taxi strike
This article is more than 8 years oldTwenty people arrested, with teachers, farmers and air traffic controllers also taking industrial action across country
Police have arrested 20 people as striking taxi drivers staged protests across France over competition from non-traditional car services such as Uber, with security forces firing teargas at crowds in an effort to maintain order.
At least 2,000 taxi drivers protested on Tuesday, disrupting traffic across France, including around Paris airports and national railway stations. Two people were injured at Orly airport when a shuttle bus tried to force its way past a taxi drivers’ blockade.
The taxi protests were the most explosive in a day of much broader national strike action, which marked the latest challenge to the Socialist government amid accusations that it is only half-heartedly tackling the state of France’s stuttering economy and sclerotic jobs market.
Taking part in the wider industrial action were teachers, doctors, air traffic controllers, hospital workers, public-sector workers and farmers demanding better prices for livestock. Public-sector protesters accused the government of failing to address the shrinking purchasing power of state workers and deal with working conditions in schools and hospitals.
One in five flights were cancelled at Paris airports and other flights faced delays as controllers staged a walkout over changes to how salaries are calculated.
The prime minister, Manuel Valls, warned taxi drivers that “violence was unacceptable” when he met their representatives but promised a mediator and talks over reform of the sector. Previous French taxi protests also turned violent, with ambushes of Uber drivers and passengers.
Karim Asnoun, head of the CGT taxi union, said of Uber’s growing presence in Europe: “Unfortunately, the governments are weak and as unemployment is pressuring them, they give in. They think they are creating jobs, whereas for every created job there is one that’s destroyed.”
Uber sent a message to French customers warning of potential violence, saying the goal of the taxi drivers’ protest was “to put pressure on the government to ... limit competition”. It warned that limiting app-based car services would raise costs, put drivers out of work and send customers back to the era “before apps and smartphones”.
Teachers, creche workers and other public servants staged demonstrations in Paris over wages, education reforms and working conditions. Unions said a pay freeze had cost public-sector workers part of their spending power. The striking unions also denounced job losses totalling about 150,000 since 2007 and said hospitals was especially hard hit.
With 15 months until the French presidential election, the Socialist president, François Hollande, is under pressure over the state of the economy. He is accused by his critics of operating a stop-start reform policy that has not gone far enough to tackle the structural problems behind the country’s economic gloom as the French economy continues to trail behind much of Europe.
Hollande’s measures for the economy have included a U-turn that lowered taxes on business and labour, increased flexibility on job cuts and loosened rules on Sunday shopping, while deregulating some highly protected sectors such as coach travel. Seen as tame by the standards of some other European countries, the reforms nonetheless sparked tensions on the left of his party.
The popular finance minister, Emmanuel Macron, who championed the reforms, has urged Hollande to go further. “We need much more radical reforms,” he recently said in Davos.
In electoral terms, Hollande’s biggest headache is the stubbornly high unemployment rate, which is also French voters’ biggest concern. The jobless rate is currently at an 18-year high of more than 10%, roughly twice that of the UK and Germany. A record 3.6 million French people are out of work, more than 600,000 higher than when Hollande took office in 2012. France is now firmly above the European average for unemployment, at a time when it has dropped in other large European economies.
Earlier this month, Hollande announced an “economic and social state of emergency”, launching a €2bn (£1.5bn) plan to create vocational training schemes and subsidies for small companies that hire. Some dismissed it as electioneering – Hollande has staked his future on employment, saying that he would not run again if unemployment figures did not fall steadily.
As Hollande focuses on the terrorist threat in France in the wake of the November attacks, hoping to extend the current state of emergency and enshrine special measures into the constitution, there is very little time left for reform before the election season begins.
A labour law reform expected in March is likely to be one of the last big policy drives of Hollande’s term in office. The reform could loosen the 35-hour week, but not do away with it.
In a speech to business leaders last week, Hollande promised: “Between irresponsible liberalism and dead-end paralysis, there’s a way.”
His popularity ratings, which were boosted after the November terrorist attacks in Paris, have fallen back again. An Odoxa poll found only 22% of French people thought he was a good president.
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