France hit by rail strike, demo by weary police

[ucrdem]

Source: Reuters

World | Wed May 18, 2016
PARIS | BY BRIAN LOVE

Strikes by French railway and port workers halved train services and prompted cancellation of ferry links to Britain on Wednesday as labor unions sought to force President Francois Hollande's government into retreat on labor law reforms.

After weeks of protests in which hundreds of their number have been hurt, police held a rally of their own to vent frustration over the stresses of near daily clashes with violent youths on the fringes of the anti-reform movement.

As they did so, a crowd chanting "police everywhere, justice nowhere" surrounded a police patrol car, which went up in flames after the police officers inside fled the scene, a few hundred meters from where their colleagues were rallying. The public prosecutor's office said after the incident it was opening an inquiry into attempted homicide.

Wednesday's rail strikes, set to run until Friday morning, reduced high-speed and inter-city services by 40 to 50 percent, also heavily disrupting local and suburban commuter lines, the SNCF state railway company said. Strike turnout, the SNCF said, was about 15 percent, lower than in previous stoppages.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-politics-protests-idUSKCN0Y90ZX

[Ghost Dog]

1. Yep. Many French people want a new '68,

that achieves more...

[Raine1967]

2. I happened to be in Paris when these protests were really getting underway.

Hell, the day we were checking into our apartment one of the protests were on the street we were staying at!

A few days later we saw a much larger protest that ended up at Place de la Republique. It was very impressive, to be honest.

Now this was back in April and at the time I could see the tensions but I really didn't see these protests as being anti-police. There are a lot of people that are very unhappy with Hollande.

It's not the right wing (supporters of Le Pen for an example) the people we saw protesting were not nationalists.

I wrote about it here: http://www.fourfreedomsblog.com/Blog.php?Act=ViewBlogPost&BlogID=3575

(I think it gives a pretty good background about what is happening in Paris and France. people are not happy with the labour reforms that were passed in 2014. Unemployment has not gotten any better as was promised)

This is very much inspired by the Occupy Movement here in our country.

[uppityperson]

3. On the positive side, many people will just get on and off without paying since conductors

are also striking. And then there's the question of how many automobiles will they burn?