Belgium's southern city of Charleroi was paralysed yesterday as workers began a 24-hour strike to protest against government plans to raise the age for early retirement from 58 to 60.

Employees from all sectors, pre-empting a nationwide strike planned for Friday, stayed away from work, forcing the city's buses to stay in their garages, schools to suspend class, and hospitals to run with skeleton staff.

Charleroi airport was out of action and Irish no-frills airline Ryanair, which has its European hub there, said on its website it had cancelled flights.

Talks between the government and unions on reform of the pension system broke down two weeks ago.

"Charleroi is very much affected by unemployment and that is why they have decided not to wait until Friday to take strike action," Diana De Crop, a spokeswoman for the Christian trade union ACV/CSC, told Reuters.

Charleroi, a victim of the decline of Belgium's steel and coal industries, has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

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