Airports, garbage workers join French strikes, police brutality claimed

Airport workers demonstrated, refuse workers picketed incinerators and strikes continued on France's railway, at nuclear power stations and in oil refineries on Friday as unions kept up their fight against the Socialist government's labour reform. Police were accused brutality against protesters and journalists and three men were detained in relation to the burning of a police car during a demonstration last month.

Railworkers outside the offices of the bosses' union AFP

Airport workers on strike over pay and conditions demonstrated at Paris's Charles De Gaulle and Orly airports on Friday morning, blocking the access to carparks at Orly for about an hour, according to one union.

Only about six percent of the 6,000-strong workforce were on strike, according to airport management, which said there was no disruption to services.

Air France pilots are threatening to strike on 11-14 June, after the start of the Euro 2016.

It would be "incomprehensible" if France was "blockaded" during the football tournament, Transport Minister Alain Vidalies declared on Friday.

"I hope it's just a media exercise," he commented.

Refuse workers continued to picket three out of four of Paris's waste disposal depots as well as several in the provinces on Friday, leading to fears that rubbish could pile up in the streets, some of which are currently flooded.

Railway workers kept up their strike. Although the percentage not working declined from 15.2 percent to 10.5 percent according to management, only six out of 10 TGV high-speed trains and three out of four regional services were running.

One union pulled out of the strike on Thursday, following a concession on rest periods that Vidalies forced the company to make, leading to rumours that CEO Guillaume Pepy is thinking of resigning.

Oil refineries were still being picketed and nuclear power station workers were on strike, although the government and petrol companies have collaborated to organise deliveries across the country.

Although the government insists that it will not back down on the labour law reform, ministers are reported to be pressing companies to give ground to reach agreements and undermine the generalised movement spearheaded by the CGT and FO unions.

Police accused of violence

Journalists and protesters in the western city of Rennes have accused police of brutality in breaking up a breakaway march from an anti-labour law protest on Thursday.

Police drove through a group of several hundred protesters who had set off to block the town's ringroad after the end of a march in the city centre, spraying them with teargas and pepper spray and then setting about some with truncheons.

Five demonstrators were taken to emergency services and a sixth kept in hospital overnight, according to local students, and several journalists say they were hit with truncheons.

The local journalists' association is to appeal to national rights ombudsman, Jacques Toubon.

Local official Christophe Mirmand pointed out that the police were working in "extremely difficult conditions" but added, "If there has been violence, I deplore it, I regret it, naturally."

Police in nearby St Malo were also accused of unnecessary force in breaking up a picket at a school, where parents, teachers and students were protesting against its planned closure.

Eleven children were hurt and three teenagers hospitalised, according to local radio.

Three detained over police car burning

A court in Paris on Thursday ordered the detention awaiting trial of three man suspected of involvement in the burning of a police car during a demonstration in Paris last month.

Two others were allowed to remain free.

An earlier ruling that they should all be let free caused protests from police unions.

A fifth suspect, an American, had already been locked up.

Video of the attack on the car, during which two officers were struck, the back window broken and an incendiary device thrown into it causing to burst into flames, caused uproar at the time.

Lawyers for the suspects called for an investigation "conducted in calm and serenity" following Friday's ruling.