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French oil industry moves to reopen refineries shut by protests

29 October 2010 22:43 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The French oil industry is looking to reopen all the nation’s refineries that were shut down for two weeks or more, after being targeted in a series of massive union-led actions protesting the government’s planned pension overhaul, APA reports quoting CNN.
Yves le Goff, a spokesman for the French Union of Petroleum Industries, told CNN that industry leaders planned to meet Friday afternoon to discuss the situation.
"Almost all French refineries are ready to start working again," Le Goff said.
Strikes ended Friday at three of oil industry giant Total’s six French refineries, a spokesman for that company told CNN. Discussions are continuing regarding the other three, he added.
Production at all 12 of the nation’s oil refineries halted during and after the mid-October protests. At least seven of them are now ready to receive and start refining oil, according to le Goff.
The refineries and the nation’s 219 petroleum depots were a focus of many of the hundreds of thousands of protesters, who hit the streets seven times in the past two months railing against a plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. Unions call the move unfair, though France’s government said is critical to keep public finances in order.
The latest round of nationwide protests took place Thursday. France’s Interior Ministry estimated that 560,000 people demonstrated, while unions -- six of which called for the protest, along with another one planned for November 6 -- put the number at a much higher two million.
A day earlier, the lower house of France’s parliament approved the controversial pension reform bill, after the Senate had approved it Tuesday. But lawmakers can still force the bill to go to the Constitutional Council before it becomes law. It takes 60 legislators to do that. The opposition Socialist party has said it will try that route.
The pension plan is the latest in a continuing round of moves by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration to pare down France’s deficit and curtail government spending. While many nations in Europe and elsewhere have undertaken or proposed major cuts, such moves are especially significant in France, where historically one in four jobs has been tied to the public sector.
Already, 40,000 teachers and staff have been laid off since 2008 in schools and universities. And 54,000 military jobs are set to be lost through 2015, per a plan announced two years ago. The government says that another 100,000 civil service jobs have been cut since Sarkozy took office in May 2007.