French national transport strike widens and deepens

FRENCH dockers, truckers and railway workers continued demanding a government withdrawal of its delayed pension reform, crippling the Port of Le Havre, France`s top container hub, and Marseille, the country`s largest port by tonnage.

Additionally, dockworkers at Marseille`s Fos-Lavera oil terminal have joined the strike due to dispute over privatisation of stevedoring and loss of government jobs, holding up 47 vessels, including 29 crude oil tankers and 18 oil product carriers.


Also, striking rail workers have stopped the operations of nearly 95 per cent of cargo traffic at SNCF, the state-owned rail company.


Air traffic has encountered similar problems. The close of all the country`s 12 refineries have forced flights to be cancelled at Paris Charles de Gaulle and Paris Orly.


Some 1,500 of the country`s 4,800 supermarket gas stations, accounting for 60 per cent of the French market, have run out of gas.


French port strikes have increased the possibility that more carriers will select alternative port calls such as Antwerp, Zeebrugge and Rotterdam, reported Newark`s Journal of Commerce. French ports handle 30 per cent of the containers for local shippers, and the remainder go through Spanish and northwest European ports.