Up to 40 per cent of France’s petrol pumps have run dry as unions ratchet up pressure on the government to scrap a controversial labour law with mass demonstrations kicking off around the country on Thursday.
The latest estimates on Thursday morning suggested some 4,655 out of the 12,000 petrol stations in the country were without fuel or running low.
In the south west city of Bordeaux, about 100 people targeted a police station, throwing objects at it and damaging a police car.
And in Paris workers from France's hardline CGT union blocked fuel supplies and parts of the country's public transport network, and cut output from all but three of its 19 nuclear power plants on Thursday in a showdown with the ruling Socialists that says it has no intention of withdrawing the contested reform.
© Provided by The Telegraph Meanwhile, another militant union, SUD, has called an open-ended strike in Paris’ public transport starting on June 10 – the very day the Euro 2016 football tournament is due to kickoff, pledging to cause transport chaos in the French capital unless the government backs down. It comes as a man with extremist links was briefly holed up inside a Paris home near a march expected to draw thousands of labor protesters.
Paris police say a doctor who arrived at the home to take the man to a psychiatric hospital sounded the alarm Thursday.
French media said the man, whose identity has not been released, is believed to have a knife and a tear gas bomb. Police say they have overpowered him but there was no sign yet of police and the man leaving the building.
The CGT has already called on its members to down tools for an indefinite period on Paris public transport starting June 1. Thursday's stoppages and street marches are seen as a test of whether the CGT-led opposition is gaining traction or at risk of fizzling out.
© Provided by The Telegraph The union has already staged seven other nationwide days of protests in the past two months against the labour reform, which makes it easier to hire and fire employees in the hope of encouraging employers to take on more permanent staff. A violent standoff was underway at Paris' de la Nation as masked protesters wearing helmets and swimming goggles in some cases hurled rocks at riot police, reports Henry Samuel at Place de la Nation.
The officers responded with tear gas, prompting demonstrators to rush for cover.
Some waved flags bearing the letters CGT, the hardline union spearheading a day of nationwide protests against the labour law. Some brandishes red flares.
© Provided by The Telegraph Tens of thousands of demonstrators - 19,000 according to police, 100,000 according to the FO union - marched from Place de la Bastille to Nation in a mainly peaceful protest against a law they want totally scrapped, seeing it an assault on workers' rights. One cortège chanted: "All together, general strike! Who are the real hooligans? The state and the bosses."
Some of these protests have turned violent, with injuries among police and demonstrators, and fears that mass marches in Paris and other big cities could degenerate has led unions to double the size of their own security arm.
After driving the labour law through parliament without a vote to bypass leftist opponents, the government has ruled out scrapping it altogether, but ministers on Thursday sent mixed messages over whether any concession could be made over its most contentious clauses. Manuel Valls, the prime minister, said: "There is no question of changing tack, even if adjustments are always possible.”
© Provided by The Telegraph However, he ruled out backtracking on “article 2” of the law, the most contested, which allows firms to opt out of national obligations on labour protection if they adopt in-house deals on pay and conditions with the consent of a majority of employees. Unions see this as weakening their hand in labour negotiations. Muddying the waters, however, Michel Sapin, the finance minister, told LCP television that "maybe" that article of the bill should be tweaked.
The SNCF state train company has called a strike on Thursday.
But two-thirds of national, regional and local rail connections were operating, suggesting stoppages by railworkers were hurting less than last week when a similar strike halved the number of trains running.© Provided by The Telegraph
Meanwhile, thousands of dock workers have poured into the square in front of the city hall of the French port city of Le Havre, setting off smoke bombs throughout the area.
The action is part of a day of strikes and protests against a labor bill loosening worker protections. Tensions are particularly high in Le Havre, where workers are blocking one of the country's main oil terminals.
The workers set off multicolour smoke bombs and threw some in fountains, kicking up plumes of water.
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