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PARIS Youths have overturned a car and hurled bottles at police in the French
city of Lyon amid nationwide tensions over raising the retirement age.
Police are chasing the protesters and trying to subdue the violence with tear
gas.
Months of peaceful protests over the retirement reform have degenerated into
violence in scattered sites around France. Lyon saw clashes Wednesday between
youths and police, and the violence is resuming Thursday.
Also Thursday, protesters temporarily blockaded Marseille's airport and have
blocked high schools around the country.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's
earlier story is below.
PARIS (AP) French protesters blockaded Marseille's airport, truckers tied up
highways and Lady Gaga canceled concerts in Paris ahead of a tense Senate vote
Thursday on raising the retirement age.
A quarter of the nation's gas stations were out of fuel despite President
Nicolas Sarkozy's orders to force open depots barricaded by striking workers.
Gasoline shortages and violence on the margins of student protests have
heightened the standoff between the government and labor unions who see
retirement at 60 as a hard-earned right.
Students barricaded a Paris high school and planned protests nationwide later
Thursday, as the Senate wraps up protracted debate on a reform that Sarkozy
calls crucial to his presidency.
Student protests have forced the government to its knees in the past, and in
recent days some have degenerated into violence. Rioters threw stones at police
Wednesday night in the city of Lyon.
The French government like many heavily indebted governments around Europe
says raising the retirement age and overhauling the money-losing pension system
is vital to ensuring that future generations receive any pensions at all.
French unions say the working class is unfairly punished by the pension reform
and that the government should find money for the pension system elsewhere.
They fear this reform will herald the end of an entire network of welfare
benefits that make France an enviable place to work and live.
"We cannot stop now," Jean-Claude Mailly, head of the Workers' Force union,
said Thursday of the protest movement.
Unions have held several rounds of one-day strikes in recent months, but
scattered actions have turned increasingly radical as the bill heads for
near-certain approval in the Senate. Leading labor unions are meeting Thursday
to decide what to do next.
In Marseille, hundreds of workers blocked all access to the main airport for
about three hours early Thursday. Passengers tugged suitcases along blocked
roads as they hiked to the terminal, before police came in and the protesters
dispersed.
Leshmi Taguelmint of the CGT trade union, remained determined. "We will
continue our action, for the time being we have the whole population behind us
and we will continue," he told AP Television News.
Wildcat protests blocked train lines around Paris on Thursday. Protesters in
cars and trucks blocked several highways around the country, from near Calais
in the north to the Pyrenees in the south, according to the national road
traffic center.
Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux lashed out at "certain people who take pieces
of our territory for battlefields." Speaking on Europe-1 radio Thursday,
Hortefeux said 1,901 people have been detained since early last week.
Hortefeux insisted that the country has several weeks of gasoline reserves and
that "the trend is toward improvement" in supplies. Still, he said a quarter of
France's gas stations lack fuel.
Kamal Guerfa works or at least shows up for work at a gas station in Lyon.
But on Thursday, there was nothing to pump.
"We are here, ready to work, there's no problem with that. The problem is that
people come to get gas and there is none. That's the problem," he said.
Laurette Meyer's heart sank when she saw the empty pumps.
"It is penalizing. We work in the building construction business. We have
employees who drive all day long in order to build the houses for our customers
and it's starting to be very difficult," she said.
Families around the country are on edge over the gasoline shortages because
school vacations start Friday.
Authorities, however, are hoping that the vacations cool off student tempers.
On Wednesday, hooded youths smashed store windows in the Paris suburb of
Nanterre and the city of Lyon, as riot police sprayed tear gas in response.
On Thursday morning, students shut down the Turgot High School near the Place
de la Republique in eastern Paris after a student union vote. Teens sat in the
middle of the street, barring vehicle traffic. Some sang songs and chanted
labor slogans while police guarded the area.
The U.S. Embassy in Paris warned Americans "to avoid demonstrations currently
taking place in France." The warning said peaceful demonstrations can escalate
into violence, and urges visitors to check with their airlines in case of
airport disruptions, and check with rental car agencies about the availability
of gasoline.
The Senate vote on the measure is scheduled to come Thursday, but the debate
could drag on for another day or two. Opposition Socialists proposed more than
1,000 amendments to the pension reform bill approved by the lower house of
parliament last month, and the Senators must debate and vote on each one. As of
Thursday morning, they still had more than 200 left.
Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said both the strikes and the violence are
taking an economic toll.
They're hitting the entertainment industry, too. Lady Gaga's website says the
singer postponed two Paris concerts scheduled for Friday and Saturday "as there
is no certainty the trucks can make it" to the show.