Police break fuel blockades

Police broke blockades at French fuel depots yesterday and skirmished with youths as the government warned of economic damage from prolonged strikes against its pensions reform.

More tear gas was fired and cars burned in Lyon and suburbs of Paris in a third day of minor riots, a day after nationwide protests brought a million people into the street.

With a third of France’s filling stations dry, according to the government, queues again formed at pumps as several fuel depots remained blockaded.

“If it is not stopped quickly, this disorder which is aimed at paralysing the country could have consequences for jobs by damaging the normal running of economic activity,” President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a statement Wednesday.

Workers in several key sectors have been on strike for a week to protest the pensions reform, which the government says is essential to reduce France’s public deficit. Unions and political opponents say it penalises workers.

Mr Sarkozy said he had ordered police to break all the fuel depot blockades set up by strikers and again refused to back down on the reform.

Three fuel depots were peacefully reopened on Mr Sarkozy’s orders, Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said yesterday, but protesters have blockaded several more, police said.

“We will continue to unblock these depots as much as necessary,” Mr Hortefeux said. “We will not let the country be blockaded and we will not let the thugs go unpunished,” he added, referring to those arrested in street riots.

Disturbances broke out for a third day in the southeastern city of Lyon, where police dispersed groups of youths and a van was set on fire, and the Paris suburb of Nanterre, where rioters burned a car and damaged buildings.

Mr Hortefeux was booed by youths as he visited damaged shops in central Lyon yesterday afternoon.

Ongoing disruption was forecast on the national railways with a third of TGV express trains cancelled, operator SNCF said.

Traffic returned to normal at France’s main air hub, Roissy-Charles de Gaulle, but a quarter of flights were cancelled at Paris’s second biggest airport, Orly.

Electricity network RTE said France was being forced to import thousands of megawatts of electricity due to a strike in the main power utility EDF.

Mr Sarkozy’s reform would raise the standard retirement age from 60 to 62 and the full benefits threshold from 65 to 67.

Unions have proposed alternative ways to cut the deficit but say the government refuses to negotiate. They are to meet today to decide their next action and some have proposed a seventh day of national protests on October 26.

Television news was dominated on Tuesday by scenes of clashes between riot police and youths, which Mr Hortefeux blamed on a rogue minority of “thugs” who joined ongoing protests by high school pupils.

The minister, who heads a crisis cell to deal with the disruption, said police had arrested 1,423 “rioters” over the past week.

Rubbish piled up in the streets of Marseille due to a strike by collectors and local police chief Michel Sappin told reporters he had called in civil defence personnel to clean it up.