France awaits new pension protest

Riot police charge demonstrators in Lyon (18 Oct 2010)Protests broke out in several cities on Monday and more widespread disruption is expected on Tuesday

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has insisted he will press ahead with pension reforms despite a gathering momentum of strike action.

Oil refineries have been shut for a week, hundreds of petrol stations have run dry and a further day of national strikes is set to begin.

Mr Sarkozy says reform is “essential” and “France is committed to it”.

Related stories

But with the Senate due for a final vote this week, protests are planned in more than 200 towns and cities.

The French government wants to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 and the full state pension age from 65 to 67.

But the plans are widely unpopular with the public and left-wing senators have submitted hundreds amendments in an attempt to delay the vote.

Although the bill was initially expected to be passed on Wednesday, some reports say the debate could last until the weekend.

At the scene

In the face of hugely unpopular reform the unions and picket lines refuse to give way.

On the eve of the final vote in the Senate, thousands will march again today. The problems will be compounded by the sixth major day of strikes, paralysing public services.

Post offices, schools and trains will all be affected. Airlines that use the Paris airports have been told to cut their services by 50%.

No matter how insistent the government is that crisis can be avoided, the pictures from the forecourts tell a different story.

There are queues forming across France and already a quarter of the supermarket service stations are out of fuel or running dry.

The oil refineries are all closed and now the oil companies are dipping into emergency supplies.

The government says there is plenty of reserve fuel to last for some time but this crisis has its own momentum.

Most drivers have fuel in the tank but are filling up as a precaution. And the more that people panic-buy, the more difficult it becomes to meet demand.

Sixth day

Tuesday will see France’s sixth national day of protests since early September with further disruption expected to air travel, trains and schools.

Half of flights in and out of Paris’s Orly airport have been cancelled and 30% of flights at other airports have been affected.

One opinion poll on Monday suggested that 71% of those surveyed supported the strikers, despite the increasing effect on people’s lives.

One in four petrol stations at supermarkets are said to have run dry or are on the verge of closing and oil company Exxon Mobil has described the situation as “critical”.

A spokeswoman said that anyone looking for diesel around Paris or in the western area of Nantes would face problems.

Severe shortages have been reported in Brittany in north-west France and the International Energy Agency says that France has begun tapping into its emergency oil reserves.

Workers at France’s 12 oil refineries have been on strike for a week and entrances to many of the country’s fuel distribution depots have been blocked.

Panic-buying has been blamed for a 50% increase in fuel sales.

Street protests

Lorry drivers joined the protests on Monday, staging a go-slow on motorways around several cities.

Pension protest numbersSaturday 16 October: 825,000 (police) – 2.5 million – 3 million (unions)Tuesday 12 October: 1.2 million – 3.5 millionSaturday 2 October: 899.000 – 3 millionThursday 23 September: 997,000 – 3 millionTuesday 7 September: 1.2 million – 2.7 million

Dozens of oil tankers are anchored off the coast of Marseille because of a strike at two Mediterranean oil ports and, inside the city, rubbish has piled up because of a strike by refuse collectors.

There were protests outside hundreds of schools on Monday and students and youths took part in a number of street demonstrations.

In the western suburb of Nanterre in Paris, dozens of youths clashed with riot police who fired rubber bullets.

Shop windows were reported broken in the Saint-Denis suburb, where education officials said more than half the area’s secondary schools had been blockaded.

Crisis cabinet

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered key ministers to form a crisis cabinet with the role of ensuring the continuity of fuel supplies.

Three departments are being charged with coordinating the state’s services to maintain the supply: the interior and economy ministries as well as the energy and environment department.

The head of the French Petrol Industries Association, Jean-Louis Schilansky, has said fuel shortages are not yet at crisis point.

“If the lorry drivers go on strike, if people block the refineries, then we will have a very big problem. But we’re not at that stage yet,” he said.

France has a strategic fuel reserve which holds up to three months of supplies, the government says.

France refineries location map

Send your pictures and videos to [email protected] or text them to 61124 (UK) or 0044 7725 100 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.

Read the terms and conditions

At no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws. In most cases a selection of your comments will be published, displaying your name as you provide it and location unless you state otherwise. But your contact details will never be published.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Tense Burma stand-off with rebels

KIA cadets trainingThe KIA ethnic militia group seeks autonomy for the Kachin people in the north of Burma

A Burmese ethnic militia group, the Kachin Independence Army, is in a tense stand-off with the army following the arrest of three of its members.

It says one of its offices has been surrounded by the Burmese military.

The KIA also said that its forces have themselves surrounded an army camp near the Chinese border, the BBC Burmese service has reported.

It has had a 16-year ceasefire with the military government and seeks autonomy for the Kachin people.

Related stories

The group has refused to sign a deal with the government to disarm and become an official border guard force.

The KIA and its civilian organisation have been allowed to control a large swathe of northern Burma as part of a ceasefire agreement with the country’s ruling generals.

They provide power, roads and schools funded by taxes on the brisk trade from China as well as the jade and gold mines and teak.

But the government’s deadline to disband had prompted fears of conflict with those groups, such as the KIA, who refused to do so.

Map locator

The BBC’s Alastair Leithead visited the KIA in Laiza, northern Burma, earlier this year, where KIA generals said they were preparing for the worst.

“I can’t say if there will be war for sure, but the government wants us to become a border guard force for them by the end of the month,” said the KIA’s Chief of Staff, Maj Gen Gam Shawng, in February.

“We will not do that, or disarm, until they have given us a place in a federal union and ethnic rights as was agreed in 1947.”

Before the latest reports, the situation appeared to have calmed.

Our correspondent says the risk of violence between the Burmese army and both the KIA and the United Wa State army, had appeared to have been reduced partly due to pressure from neighbouring China.

There are around two dozen ethnic groups in Burma, mostly scattered around its borders, and the biggest have been in various states of ceasefire or civil war over the past few decades.

The KIA is one of the biggest – their commanders say it includes 10,000 regular troops and 10,000 reservists, but it is impossible to know for sure.

The Burmese army is one of the biggest in Asia.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.