A majority of French fear the tournament, operating under high security after last year’s Islamist attacks on Paris, will be disrupted by protests and worry about the impact on France’s image overseas, a poll showed.
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A demonstrator holds anti-police signs up to a police officer standing guard during a protest called by seven labour unions and students against labour and employment law reform on May 26, 2016 in Bordeaux, southwest France. Other reports suggested more than three refineries were shut down. Dock workers hurled firecrackers.
But despite employee walk-outs, street demonstrations, and threats from unions, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has rejected calls to scrap the part of the labor reform law which has most angered the CGT.
The big question is whether Thursday’s burst of labour action fizzles out after the one-day strikes end, or inspires lasting unrest.
Also on Friday, managers at the CIM oil import terminal, which handles 40 percent of France’s oil imports and distributes fuel too, took over operations from strikers who had brought it to a halt.
Proposed reform also aims to reduce overtime pay and economic redundancies and opens to negotiation working hours and holidays.
In the Seine Maritime region north of Paris, local government prefect Nicole Klein said the number of petrol stations without fuel had fallen significantly and lifted rationing orders.
Some unions continued the strike into Friday, and France’s main oil company Total said four of its eight refineries were at a standstill.
Valls’ willingness to change the law signifies that the government knows that “the crisis is escalating and they want it to stop”, Al Jazeera’s Butler said. “The far left is hostile towards Hollande because he has taken a centrist approach to economy policy in the name of reform”, Fraser said in an interview.
“Valls is hardening his tone?”
Union activists and ordinary workers reacted with derision. The sounds of sirens and the smoke bomb explosions reverberated around the area.
“The current escalation goes beyond what is acceptable in a protest movement”, the Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises ( CGPME) said in a statement on Facebook posted on Wednesday.
The government and some organisations – including the International Monetary Fund – have said that the labour legislation is a necessary to create jobs. Unions are protesting a bill that makes it easier to fire workers.
The stakes are high for both Hollande and the unions. They reopened a fuel pipeline that feeds the airports of Paris and a crude pipeline to Exxon’s Gravenchon refinery, a union official said.
The CGT union is leading the action, supported by other unions including Force Ouvriere and Unef, whereas the more moderate CFDT union backs the labour reforms.
The government has reportedly begun tapping into France’s strategic fuel reserves. Prices have risen noticeably at gas pumps and some stations are rationing.
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“It’s for us that they’re doing this”, said Jean-Luc Geraert, whose battered white van was caught behind the makeshift barricade set up at the entrance to the bridge. Geraert, a 55-year-old industrial painter, said if the government doesn’t back down soon, “it’s going to get worse”.
