THE INDEPENDENT: President Sarkozy vows to crush petrol blockades crippling country
France teetered on the edge of a complex and multi-layered crisis yesterday as petrol shortages worsened and violence by disaffected suburban youths spread and intensified.
Around 3.5 million people, according to unions – about the same or marginally fewer than last week – joined marches around the country to protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to raise the retirement age to 62. One-day strikes in the public sector disrupted rail and air services but were patchily observed by workers in other sectors.
The sense of crisis threatening the country came not from these "official" protests but from spreading blockages of schools and universities by students and by continuing strikes at oil refineries and the picketing of fuel distribution depots by hardline union branches.
Mr Sarkozy promised rapid action to lift the fuel blockages as the government admitted that 4,000 – almost one in three – petrol stations were "waiting for supplies" (in other words empty).
The Prime Minister, François Fillon, said that "no one has a right to take an entire country hostage" and promised emergency action to restore petrol supplies to normal within five days. Potentially even more seriously, there was a second day of violent clashes between police and hooded youths in Lyon, in Nanterre, west of Paris, and in a score of other towns and suburbs. In Lyon, 200 youths – apparently unconnected to any pension protest – rampaged down the city's main shopping street, burning and overturning cars and looting and smashing shops. Read on and comment >>> John Lichfield in Paris | Wednesday, October 20, 2010
