CINA

Today's German (bourgeois) magazine Der Spiegel is reporting following:

Five Million Civil Servants Join Strikes

It's Black Tuesday for French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Five million French civil servents have gone out on strike, joining millions of others already on the streets protesting planned reforms.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is facing his stiffest political test on Tuesday as five million public servants stage a one-day strike. They are joining transport workers who are staying off the job for the seventh straight day.

Today in Marseille: Striking railway workers..

..are blocking some of the main roads

Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said Monday that the transport strike was costing the economy between €300 million and €350 million ($440 million and $513 million) a day.

The strikes are causing disruptions to air traffic, postal delivery and even weather forecasts and French people are being forced to forgo their newspapers as printers and distribution employees stay away from work.

However, with the demands of the different groups differing widely there were no plans to hold a single protest march on Tuesday. France's transport unions are continuing their strikes despite the fact that negotiations with employers and the government are scheduled for Wednesday. The transport workers are trying to protect their special pension rights which currently allow them to retire on a full pension earlier than employees in other sectors.

The public servants, meanwhile are protesting the president's plans to drastically down-size the civil service, cutting up to 23,000 jobs in 2008, almost half of which will be in education. Many are also protesting against low wages and the increasing cost of living. The issue of a reduction in "purchasing power" as prices rise is currently a hot issue in France.

As teachers go on strike on Tuesday high-school pupils are expected to join students who have blocked and occupied many universities to protest government attempts to bring in more private investment into education.

While the majority of French supported Sarkozy's pledge to modernize France in the presidential elections in May many are beginning to feel disappointed with the failure to improve their daily lives six months on. Although there is little popular support for the transport strikes, many people sympathize with the civil servants' complaints about the difficulties of making ends meet.

Despite the opinion polls showing that popular support is dropping, the government has said that it will stand firm, with Prime Minister Francois Fillon saying the reforms must go through. The president has been keeping an uncharacteristically low profile over the past week, in an attempt to avoid aggravating the situation, but he is expected to give a major speech later in the week on measures to increase people's purchasing power.

The FSU union warned the government against ignoring civil servants while dealing with the rail workers. "They seem to believe this is just a movement of anger that will pass," union leader Gerard Aschieri told the Associated Press. "This is to underestimate the discontent."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,518426,00.html

Related articles:

☞ Civil servants join huge French strike (Guardian/UK, 11.20)

☞ Sarkozy Mounts Showdown against the Unions (Der Spiegel, 11.19)

☞ Saboteurs target strike-hit French railways (Guardian, 11.21)