French protesters blocking airports

[October 20, 2010]  PARIS (AP) -- Protesters opposed to raising France's retirement age are blocking or disrupting access to airports in Paris and around France.

The ADP Paris airport authority says protesters are blocking the main road leading to one of two terminals at Orly Airport.

Unions are also staging a protest Wednesday at Charles de Gaulle airport, the country's biggest.

The CGT Transport union says protesters set up barricades blocking access to Toulouse airport. Police dislodged them, but the protesters then marched along the onramp leading to the airport entrance.

The union says protests also shut down the Clermont-Fermand airport in the south and disrupted airports in Nice and Nantes.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

PARIS (AP) -- Hooded youths rampaged through the Paris suburb of Nanterre Wednesday morning, hurling stones and bottles and breaking windows in stores and city hall. The government threatened to send in elite paramilitary officers to quell the violence.

Riot police in black body armor forced striking workers away from blocked fuel depots in western France, restoring gasoline to areas where pumps were dry after weeks of protests over a proposed hike in the retirement age.

Riot officers in Nanterre sprayed tear gas but appeared unable to stop the violence in the town, the site of days of clashes around a high school shuttered by protests over a proposal to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 to help prevent the pension system from going bankrupt.

After months of largely peaceful disruptions, many protests erupted into violence this week as President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed that his conservative party would pass the reform in a Senate vote expected Thursday.

Many workers feel the change would be a first step in eroding France's social benefits -- which include long vacations, contracts that make it hard for employers to lay off workers and a state-subsidized health care system -- in favor of "American-style capitalism."

Sarkozy said Wednesday that he would "carry the retirement reform through to the end." And despite France's tolerance for a long tradition of strikes and protest, official patience appeared to be waning after weeks of snarled traffic, cancelled flights and dwindling gasoline supplies and, now, rising urban violence.

With nearly a third of France's gas stations dry, authorities stepped in without incident overnight to force open three fuel depots blocked by striking workers for days, Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said.

At one site in the western town of Donges, police formed a corridor along the road leading to the depot to allow trucks to pass in and out. Video footage showed officers peacefully herding striking workers away from one depot.

Hortefeux warned that the blockades threatened emergency services and could have grave consequences for the entire French economy and public health and safety.

"The right to strike does not give anyone the right to prevent people from working or the right to block things, or the right to prevent travel," Hortefeux said.

Hortefeux warned rioters that "the right to protest is not the right to break things, the right to set things on fire, the right to assault, the right to pillage."

"We will use all means necessary to get these delinquents," including the GIGN paramilitary police, he said. The police deployed so far have been CRS riot police, helmeted and wielding shields, sometimes firing tear gas or rubber bullets.

Over the past week, 1,423 people have been detained for protest-related violence, he said, more than a third of them Tuesday. Of those, 123 are facing legal action. He said he ordered police to look at video surveillance to find more perpetrators, suggesting more arrests could be ahead.

He said 62 police officers have been injured in the violence over the past week.

In Nanterre on Wednesday morning, about 100 students blocked the school entrance and part of highway in front of the school, while a "tranquility team" of about 30 adults in special red jackets sought to keep things calm.

Then about 100 other youths arrived and started darting through the town streets, smashing store windows and throwing stones. Some store owners lowered metal blinds to avoid looting. Nine police vans were parked in the surrounding area.

The sidewalks of Nanterre were littered with glass from bus shelters and illuminated signs that had been smashed Tuesday. All the vehicles were removed Wednesday from the street in front of the school, because a car had been torched there the day before. Other clashes broke out in the southern city of Lyon.

This week's clashes revived memories of student unrest in 2006 that forced the government to abandon another highly unpopular labor bill. And the specter of 2005 riots that spread through poor housing projects nationwide with disenfranchised immigrant populations is never far away.

Students plan new protests Thursday, with a demonstration in Paris hours before the Senate is expected to approve the retirement measure.

Strikes continued Wednesday at the SNCF national rail network, and one in three TGV high-speed train was cancelled.

Unions staged a protest Wednesday at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, where one-day strikes by air traffic controllers Tuesday left about a third of flights cancelled.

In the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, authorities intervened to re-open tunnels blocked by protesters Wednesday. No buses were running in Marseille because unions were blocking the main bus depot.

[Associated Press]

Associated Press writer Jean-Marie Godard in Paris contributed to this report.

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