Both men had their clothes ripped and were forced to scramble over a fence to escape their assailants following a meeting at the company’s headquarters near Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.
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Human resources manager Xavier Broseta, for example, had his shirt ripped off and had to climb over a wire fence to safety after hundreds of striking workers stormed a board meeting. The pilots refused a proposal by Air France to work longer hours. Despite that, anger was visibly palpable.
Overall, the airline stands to save 1.8 billion euros (about $2 billion).
Under Air France’s initial restructuring plan, created to make the airline more competitive in the face of increasing worldwide competition, pilots would have been required to spend between 15 and 20 percent more time in the sky but for the same salary.
The airline’s parent company, Air France-KLM, said it planned to take legal action over what it described as “aggravated violence” towards its senior staff.
Another executive, Pierre Plissonnier, who is responsible for the long-haul flight division, had his shirt and jacket torn in the scrum.
The company said it would aim for “voluntary departures” but said compulsory redundancies could not be ruled out.
Mr Broseta and Air France chief executive Frederic Gagey had been outlining a drastic cost-cutting plan, described by the company as “Plan B” after it failed to persuade its pilots to accept a less radical one earlier this year.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls condemned the outburst, saying that it was completely unjustified.
He blamed the company for negotiating in bad faith, describing its claim to open to alternatives as “a lie told to the French, to employees and to the government”.
The company, which employs 52,000 staff, has said that it faced “the impossibility of reaching an agreement to implement the productivity measures to restore long-term profitability”. Bigger profit margins were also secured by a healthy Netherlands-based subsidiary, Transavia, a medium cost airliner.
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Demonstrators try to enter to Air France headquarters in Roissy-en-France, on October 5, 2015, during a demonstration for the launch of a restructuring plan at a central committee meeting.
