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French Strike Hits Fuel Supplies
Petrol stations across France are running out of fuel as refinery and port workers continue a strike against the government's plan to raise the retirement age.
Union says 1,500 petrol stations have run dry as workers step up action in protest against pension overhaul. (Al-Jazeera) Around 1,500 petrol stations attached to French shopping centres had dried up by Monday morning, the AFP news agency reported.
It said the petrol stations supply the majority of the country's motorists.
"Twenty to 25 per cent of our distribution capacity is either stopped or in trouble," Alexandre de Benoist, a senior official with Union of Independent Petroleum Importers, which represents the sector, said.
He said the situation was "very worrying" in some regions with fuel distribution stations on strike or blockaded by workers from other sites.
"There are at least 1,500 stations that have run out of at least one fuel product or are totally dry," he said.
France has around 12,500 petrol stations, with 4,500 of those attached to supermarkets or shopping centres.
More protests planned
France's UFIP oil industry lobby has said France could see serious fuel-supply problems by mid-week, meaning the government may have to look at tapping emergency reserves.
Nationwide strikes over the pension changes have spread to the country's 12 oil refineries over the past seven days, adding to the impact of a three-week-long strike at France's largest oil port, Fos-Lavera, over working conditions and a port overhaul.
However, government ministers have sought to assuage fears, saying that the country has plenty of fuel.
"The government is in control," Christian Estrosi, the industry minister, told RTL radio on Monday.
"There will be no blockade for companies, no blockade for transport and no blockade for road users."
Majority support
Unions are stepping up action in the run-up to a senate vote on the pension bill due to take place on Wednesday, with major demonstrations expected to take place on Tuesday.
A majority of the French support the protests against planned legislation to raise the minimum and full retirement ages by two years to 62 and 67 respectively, a measure the government says is the only way to rein in a growing pension deficit.
Lorry drivers joined in the strike on Sunday, blocking roads and staging go-slow operations on highways, while rail unions announced new strikes from Monday.
High-school students are also continuing protests.
The main points of the pension bill have passed through both houses of parliament and following the next senate votel could soon be signed into law.
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Show AllCommunism and Democracy have one thing in common. They are doomed to failure because the general populace are unable to govern themselves and require selfless leaders to make the "ism" work. No Communist government, in anything but name, has ever existed nor will any for any length of time. There has always been and always will be men who lust after power who will wrest control from the masses.
"Go learn something about Communism"
Had enough of Communism, thank you. I'll rather someone else experiment with it.
You wouldn't recognize Communism if it hit you in the face.
You have made a good start by questioning and caring. I cannot say what you should do, since my generation's methods have not worked. I trust that if you start with something small and real, the pathways will become clearer to you. Try to influence one person to join you. Just keep your head and do not be overly influenced by people who present absolutes or violence.
It is not up to one person out of six billion to solve everything, but neither is it acceptable to desist from trying.
Joe
The solidarity of French workers is the consequence of their battles in the streets of France against their own generals & governments, and further ingrained by actual occupation of Paris by fascists. We Americans have no such living and continuous memories. And we won't have militant working people until it becomes clear that half-century attempt to placate workers by giving them middle class prerogatives will not be repeated any time soon by our fascist rulers here.
A friend sent me a link to an article in Business Week that parroted the French government line about the worker actions in France - there is plenty of fuel - the government has plenty of fuel in "reserve" - the pension reforms are inevitable - the demonstrations are small and ineffectual, etc.
I saw a piece on NBC and they gave a surprisingly honest report that half the fast trains failed to run yesterday - 1,500 filling stations were out of fuel and de Gaulle airport was going to run dry, canceling all internal flights as soon as last night.
Then on Democracy now they had video of one of Paris's huge train stations with all but one track empty. Of the terminal of de Gaulle with practically no one around.
NBC showed video of student demonstrators and the cars they had set ablaze. NBC reported that the police responded with tear gas. Here in the States I think the demonstrators would have been labeled "terrorists" and the police and National Guard would have been using machine guns not tear gas.
Our population is cowed in part because we have jack-booted terrorist thugs with machine guns at the ready spread throughout the 50 states ready to pounce with deadly force should workers take to the streets with the sort of mass numbers and organization we see in France today.
The workers are able to demonstrate power like they are in France in part because France has more freedom that we do here in the belly of the beast. The USA just isn't the free country it once was before the cold war and the repression of the McCarthy period in the 1950s. I know we have made tremendous strides in moving to racial equality, but a fascist oppression has also permeated our national culture at the same time.
This is so uplifting! It almost gives me hope. Yes, I said "almost"
glenn ford wrote, "This is why unions in the USA have been crushed by corps and gov."As a union member, I could not agree more. Democrat Party leadership have become beholden to corporations (and their campaign contributions) just as bad as Rupublicans have always been. Most of our union leaders are now lapdogs of Democratic politicians, who feed at the trough of Capitalism. I went to the march on 10/10, hoping to be inspired and given some guidance on a new path of resistance or action to combat the rightward shifts of our society, only to be presented with just another "Let's get out the votes for our Democratic Friends!" Pep Rally. I feel very depressed and disheartened about the state of this country and yearn for the early days of true union solidarity against the Corporatocracy.I am very pessimistic about the mid-term elections but no one seems to know what course to take to avert this train wreck. Sometimes suicide seems like the best option since, after 17 months of unemployment, I can not leave the country. Or even my doomed state.
That's why Americans hate the French, on top of being more sophisticated, knowing how to dress and eat, smelling better, they also have balls, which Americans don't.
After Americans invaded Normandy with the same intentions Hitler had (of illegally occupying France), the French told them to get the fuck out. Another reason to hate the French.
Now the French prove once again that the only way to get anything out of corporate and government mobsters is to strike. Lucky for the criminals they haven't used guillotines. Yet.
"After Americans invaded Normandy with the same intentions Hitler had (of illegally occupying France), the French told them to get the fuck out."
That's according to the revisionist history they teach in public school these days?
in ol' glorious dixie, aging slaves were liquidated after they became unable to work any further for dixie's "finest people". it did not matter that everything they had produced over their lifetime had been taken away by the finest people and therefore the slaves could only "choose" not to save for retirement (they were irresponsible!).
in the "triumphant great western democracies"TM, older workers are instead told that "there is a pension problem!" after (almost) everything that they produce over the years is appropriated by the modern "finest people" (who, unlike dixie’s finest people, do deserve to pocket everything because they are more creative and work hardest when it comes to... grabbing through shrewd contracting most of what is produced, duh!)
yes, these are the same "better educated", "more creative", and "harder-working" "finest people" whose naturally earned superior neofeudal status was preserved by the bank bailouts of 2008-2009 which were decided ("to save civilization!") by the "democratically elected leaders"TM of the "triumphant great western democracies"TM when the "finest people's" financial-gambling problem (who said they are perfect!?) threatened to ruin them for good.
in other words, the workers who are about to retire have produced humongous amounts of wealth that, however, is off the table as a possibility to support them during their final years "because" this wealth was appropriated fairly and balancedly by the modern neofeudal class of "finest people" who do deserve to grab it all also because they have learned to bribe politicians, journalists, and public intellectuals better than anybody else before in world history (obviously! otherwise we would be celebrating a different and even more deserving group of "finest people"! we should be all be very thankful for the honor of working (living!?) and croaking for the finest possible leadership (ask karl popper).