French boss wants army against workers

This is a video about the Fos-Lavéra strike and other strikes in France.

By Antoine Lerougetel in France:

Marseille bosses call for army, police to break dockers’ strike

12 October 2010

On Sunday Jean-Luc Chauvin, an employers’ federation leader, calling for the mobilisation of the army and the gendarmerie to clear the blockage by a crane operators’ strike of the oil terminals at the port of Fos-Lavéra near Marseille, in southern France.

In a press conference on Monday reported on France 3 regional TV, Chauvin—who is the president of the regional branch of the Medef (Movement of French Enterprises, the main French employers’ organisation)—declared, “We are requesting the intervention of law enforcement agencies; we are requesting that the state do what is necessary to open up the port”.

As of this writing, Chauvin’s provocative statement has not been widely reported.

French workers forced to ask bosses if they need pee break: here.

New wave of French strikes raises spectre of May 1968 protests: here.

French workers clashed head-on with the Sarkozy administration today over its attempt to force through a two-year increase in the retirement age: here.

The spokesman for the Roma of Austria is a municipal councillor in Vienna. He fears that the campaign launched by the president of the French Republic “may be the starting point for a new wave of anti-Roma violence in Europe”. Professor Rudolf Sarközi is the spokesman for the Roma of Austria: here.

Eighty-two percent of French women aged 25-49 work, many of them full-time, but 82 percent of parliamentary seats are occupied by men. French women earn 26 percent less than men but spend twice as much time on domestic tasks. They have the most babies in Europe, but are also the biggest consumers of anti-depressants: here.