French Transit Strikes Alarm Government, Business Leaders

French government and business leaders warned Saturday that crippling strikes spreading through the public sector could soon seriously damage the economy.

“The consequences for weakened businesses in a faltering environment could be catastrophic,” Franck Borotra, the minister for industry, postal service and telecommunications, said, inviting unions to talk and warning of job losses if strikes drag on.

“Fifty percent of the economic activity of small and medium businesses in the Paris region is blocked, and this means fragility for people’s jobs,” Borotra told LCI television.

Conditions looked certain to worsen in the week ahead, with strikes already affecting the country’s transit system expected to spread to air travel, schools, public-sector agencies, health care and even the police force.

“When there is no public transport, there are no customers,” said Jean-Michel Hallez, director of the Galeries Lafayette chain’s main store in central Paris.

Unions are digging in against government plans to overhaul the creaking, debt-laden welfare system to bring down state spending, the central issue in the strikes.