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French public radio in crisis as row deepens

A fierce struggle pitting striking unions at French public radio and its cost-cutting young boss looked set to worsen on Wednesday after the chief executive vowed to see through a plan to cut 300 jobs.

French public radio in crisis as row deepens
Striking employees demonstrate on a bridge near the Radio France headquarters, the Maison de la Radio. Photo: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP
"I still have four years of my mandate and during those four years I will not let up," said chief executive Mathieu Gallet, an ambitious 38-year-old with the looks and smooth delivery of a TV host, who was appointed to the top post at Radio France a year ago.
 
His uncompromising performance to lawmakers on a parliamentary cultural commission Wednesday set the scene for further digging-in by both sides in what is already Radio France's worst-ever labour dispute.
   
The strike started March 19 and has gone on for an unprecedented three weeks with no end in sight.
   
Listeners used to tuning in to one of Radio France's six stations can now only hear music interspersed with occasional and very brief news breaks by non-striking journalists.
 
A visibly exasperated Culture Minister Fleur Pellerin told parliament: "This conflict has gone on for too long."
 
She promised "very rapidly" she would make known decisions to restore dialogue between Radio France's management and unions, but  did not elaborate.
 
"The situation remains frozen," Pellerin said. "I will shoulder my responsibilities."
 
Poisonous relations
 
The relationship between Gallet and the unions, which mostly cover the radio group's technicians, has become poisonous.
   
Gallet did himself no favours by embarking on what the satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine said was a 100,000-euro ($110,000) renovation of his office and by hiring of a PR consultant on a 90,000-euro salary as he prepared his job-cutting plan.
   
Now some union representatives will have nothing more to do with him.
   
"We have arrived at the point of no return," the head of the CGT union, Philippe Martinez, told French television network Canal+, where Gallet worked from 2001 to 2006.
   
Gallet left Canal+ to become an adviser to the right-wing government of former president Nicolas Sarkozy.
   
In 2010, he was named as head of France's National Audiovisual Institute which manages the country's TV and radio archives. Four years later, the
left-wing Socialist government appointed him boss of Radio France.
 
€21-million budget shortfall 
 
On Wednesday, Gallet was to present the details of his plan to the broadcaster's employees.
   
It calls for 300 jobs to be sliced from the group's 4,600-strong workforce, for webradio to take over from some of the more esoteric broadcasts, the halt of long- and shortwave transmissions, and the reduction in size of the group's two classical orchestras.
   
The aim is to fill a 21-million-euro shortfall in Radio France's budget. The group receives 664 million euros per year, 90 percent of it from a tax imposed on French households with a television.
   
"I am going to continue with this project," Gallet declared to the lawmakers Wednesday. He added that he believed that "the large majority" of
Radio France employees backed his plan.
   
In a possible sign the Socialist government could step in to calm the conflict, one lawmaker said Radio France might receive an extra 80 million
euros in public money, but there was no immediate confirmation from the culture ministry.

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TRAVEL NEWS

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

Germany's Deutsche Bahn rail operator and the GDL train drivers' union have reached a deal in a wage dispute that has caused months of crippling strikes in the country, the union said.

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

“The German Train Drivers’ Union (GDL) and Deutsche Bahn have reached a wage agreement,” GDL said in a statement.

Further details will be announced in a press conference on Tuesday, the union said. A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn also confirmed that an agreement had been reached.

Train drivers have walked out six times since November, causing disruption for huge numbers of passengers.

The strikes have often lasted for several days and have also caused disruption to freight traffic, with the most recent walkout in mid-March.

In late January, rail traffic was paralysed for five days on the national network in one of the longest strikes in Deutsche Bahn’s history.

READ ALSO: Why are German train drivers launching more strike action?

Europe’s largest economy has faced industrial action for months as workers and management across multiple sectors wrestle over terms amid high inflation and weak business activity.

The strikes have exacerbated an already gloomy economic picture, with the German economy shrinking 0.3 percent across the whole of last year.

What we know about the new offer so far

Through the new agreement, there will be optional reduction of a work week to 36 hours at the start of 2027, 35.5 hours from 2028 and then 35 hours from 2029. For the last three stages, employees must notify their employer themselves if they wish to take advantage of the reduction steps.

However, they can also opt to work the same or more hours – up to 40 hours per week are possible in under the new “optional model”.

“One thing is clear: if you work more, you get more money,” said Deutsche Bahn spokesperson Martin Seiler. Accordingly, employees will receive 2.7 percent more pay for each additional or unchanged working hour.

According to Deutsche Bahn, other parts of the agreement included a pay increase of 420 per month in two stages, a tax and duty-free inflation adjustment bonus of 2,850 and a term of 26 months.

Growing pressure

Last year’s walkouts cost Deutsche Bahn some 200 million, according to estimates by the operator, which overall recorded a net loss for 2023 of 2.35 billion.

Germany has historically been among the countries in Europe where workers went on strike the least.

But since the end of 2022, the country has seen growing labour unrest, while real wages have fallen by four percent since the start of the war in Ukraine.

German airline Lufthansa is also locked in wage disputes with ground staff and cabin crew.

Several strikes have severely disrupted the group’s business in recent weeks and will weigh on first-quarter results, according to the group’s management.

Airport security staff have also staged several walkouts since January.

Some politicians have called for Germany to put in place rules to restrict critical infrastructure like rail transport from industrial action.

But Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected the calls, arguing that “the right to strike is written in the constitution… and that is a democratic right for which unions and workers have fought”.

The strikes have piled growing pressure on the coalition government between Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business FDP, which has scored dismally in recent opinion polls.

The far-right AfD has been enjoying a boost in popularity amid the unrest with elections in three key former East German states due to take place later this year.

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