French workers take to the streets as fuel blockade bites

French trade unions staged another massive day of protest yesterday to defend their right to retire at 60, as strikes in the key refining sector threatened to cut off fuel supplies.

Although government estimates of the turnout at the rallies suggested the movement might be losing steam, unions warned that strikes are spreading to more businesses and that a new nationwide protest would be held on Tuesday.

Tension has been building since record demonstrations earlier last week with strikes in refineries cutting off fuel supplies to Paris airports and with high school students joining older workers to condemn pension reform moves.

According to the interior ministry, 825,000 people took to the streets of towns and cities across the country yesterday, the lowest official total since protests against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan began in September.

Unions estimated the turnout at “around three million”, arguing that the numbers were around the same as a previous protest on a Saturday two weeks earlier, and labour leaders insisted the campaign would go on.

“The movement is taking root and growing in terms of the number of companies hit by various forms of strike as in the number of employees taking part in the action,” the powerful CGT union said in a statement.

However, Sarkozy’s works and pensions minister Eric Woerth insisted there had been a “significant drop-off” in the number of people taking part from the 1.2 million the government said had marched last Tuesday.

“There were, nevertheless, still a lot of protesters. That underlines the government’s duty to explain this reform better,” he said.

Labour wants to force Sarkozy into backing down on his plan to raise the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62, which is in the final days of its journey through a parliament in which the right wing leader enjoys a comfortable majority.

“We’re prepared to demonstrate under the snow if it takes that long,” Airbus worker Stephane Thibault, 37, told AFP at a demonstration in the southern city of Toulouse.

“We’re mobilised, everyone seems motivated. With right-wing governments, we know you have to resist,” he said.

Strikes have shut down 10 out of France’s 12 oil refineries, despite riot police being dispatched to fuel depots to protect deliveries amid panic buying.

The government has given oil companies permission to tap into their own emergency stocks, but has resisted calls to open the part of the French strategic fuel reserve controlled by a government committee.

Paris’ main airport, Roissy Charles de Gaulle, has enough aviation fuel to last until tomorrow evening or Tuesday, the transport ministry said, with planes reportedly being told to arrive with enough fuel for the return journey.

“We have ways of finding a solution to supply the airport. We’re confident,” the spokesman told AFP, asking not to be named. “The pipeline supplying fuel to Orly and Roissy airports is working intermittently.”

Finance Minister Christine Lagarde told RTL television that only 230 service stations out of 3,000 had run dry of fuel. “We have several weeks of fuel stocks,” she insisted.