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STRIKES

Flights cancelled in France’s latest pension strike

The next day of strikes and demos by opponents of pension reform will see flight cancellations at France's main airports, the French civil aviation authority has announced.

Published: 1 June 2023 17:12 CEST
Flights cancelled in France's latest pension strike
Photo by BORIS HORVAT / AFP

After a break of several weeks, the next strike day in France’s long-running battle over pension reform is scheduled for Tuesday, June 6th.

Disruption from one-day mass strikes has become less severe over time, but on Thursday the French civil aviation authority announced that flights in and out of Paris Orly, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nantes airports will be affected by walk-outs from air traffic controllers. Paris Charles de Gaulle airport will not be affected.

The Direction générale de l’aviation civile (DGAC) has requested that airlines cancel 33 percent of flights in and out of Paris Orly airport, and 20 percent of flights in and out of Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nantes

Flights that pass over French airspace could also be affected.

The DGAC advised travellers to postpone their journey if possible. 

The disruption will last from the evening of Monday, June 5th to the morning of Wednesday, June 7th, with the possibility of knock-on effects later in the week.

The DGAC tells airlines to cancel a certain percentage of flights, and then it is up to airlines to decide which flights to cancel. The airlines generally try to protect long-haul flights to minimise disruption.

Anyone with a flight booked is advised to contact their airline. 

June 6th marks the latest in a series of one-day strikes that have gripped the country since January over Emmanuel Macron’s reforms to the French pension system, including raising the pension age from 62 to 64. The reform has now passed into law, but political opponents have a final opportunity to try and block it in parliament on June 8th.

It’s likely that June 6th will also see some level of disruption on the national rail network and city public transport – full details will be published on Monday.

There will also be marches and demos in towns and cities around France.

You can keep up with the latest on service disruption in our strike section HERE. 

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STRIKES

Strike hits French TV and radio stations

French TV and radio stations have been hit by a 'massive' strike against government plans to merge publicly funded media organisations.

Published: 23 May 2024 14:07 CEST
Strike hits French TV and radio stations

French public broadcasting unions have called for workers to strike on Thursday and Friday in protest against plans to merge parts of the French public media apparatus. 

France’s parliament on Thursday began examining a bill, spearheaded by the minister of culture, Rachida Dati, that would create a large public body called ‘France Médias’.

It would merge the existing public bodies of France Télévisions, Radio France, the Institut National de l’Audovisuel (INA), and possibly also France Médias Monde (RFI and France 24) beginning in 2025-2026. 

From the government’s perspective, the merger would help to protect public broadcasting from competition from private competitors. But unions see the plan as “ineffective, demagogic and dangerous”. 

“At a time when public media is giving its all in a media landscape with private companies controlled by a handful of billionaires, why push it into a merger that is set to be long, complex, anxiety provoking for employees and with no real editorial objective?” representatives wrote in a joint column in Le Monde.

The changes would affect at least 16,000 workers.

Disruption

The union for Radio France, SNJ, said that three out of every four journalists had walked out on Thursday, with widespread attendance across other sectors as well.

Many TV and radio stations do not have their usual programming, and are airing pre-recorded notices explaining that services are disrupted due to the strike.

These include channels such as France 2 and France 3, France 4 and France 5, as well as the Franceinfo news channel and regional radio and TV channels.

As for online media,the homepage of Franceinfo has a banner reading “due to a strike called by the France Télévisions and Radio France unions against the reform of public broadcasting, the operation of the franceinfo.fr website will be disrupted on Thursday. We apologise for the inconvenience.”

READ MORE: Explained: French newspapers, TV and magazines

Morning radio stations on Radio France, such as France Inter, France Culture, France Musique, and more, will be replaced by music, while several television channels, including Franceinfo, will simply re-broadcast old programmes.

Some shows went ahead live, such as Télématin on Thursday morning, but most France 24 programmes will be severely disrupted on Thursday and potentially on Friday too.

The political debate between Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and head of the far-right RN party Jordan Bardella is still expected to go ahead at 8.15pm on Thursday. It will be aired on France 2, with management using external service providers, according to unions.

Previous changes to public broadcasting

This is not the only change that French public media have contended with in recent years. 

In 2022, the French governemnt scrapped the annual TV licence, saving households approximately €138 a year.

However this left French public service broadcasters with reduced funding.

The licence was used to finance the TV and radio channels in the public sector, and it raised approximately €3.7 billion a year – 65 percent of which is allocated to France Télévisions, 15.9 percent to Radio France, 7.5 percent to Arte, 7 percent to France Médias Monde, 2.4 percent to audiovisual archive agency INA and 2.1 percent to TV5 Monde, a Senate report revealed.

More strikes ahead?

Workers were called to join a rally on Thursday outside of the ministry of culture in Paris. Meanwhile, another mobilisation is planned for May 28th, which would be the first day of the vote on the merger bill.

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