Truckers Strike Threatens to Clog French Roads

Protesting truck drivers blockaded gas depots Saturday as trucking companies reacted coolly to Prime Minister Lionel Jospin’s offer of financial incentives designed to avert a strike that could clog French roads.

Car owners around the country were filling their tanks and bracing themselves for highway-jamming protests after truck company owners threw up their hands and left the bargaining table late Friday.

Transport unions said they will set up roadblocks throughout France starting tonight if the trucking companies refuse to meet their demands for pay raises and changes in a variety of working conditions. Last year, striking drivers clogged highways for 12 days.

The Socialist Jospin, in a last-minute bid to negotiators, offered to lower trucking taxes by $133 per truck.

“The government, like the entire country, expects from [the drivers and company owners] an attitude of dialogue and solidarity,” Jospin said in a statement.

For at least one of France’s biggest unions, the incentives were not enough. The CGT pulled out of the talks late Saturday, saying the absence of the leading truck owner syndicate, the Union of Transport Federations, rendered the talks useless.

“The government must use all its weight to bring them back to the table and make them assume their responsibilities,” said CGT official Jean-Pierre Prou.

The Union of Transport Federations quit negotiations late Friday after saying it had given its final offer, though other groups of owners said they would continue to negotiate.

About 30 truckers blocked off the three biggest gas depots in the northern city of Rouen on Saturday, certain that renewed negotiations would fail, local union leader Marcel Leconte said.

Leconte said the truckers were trying to keep gas stations from stocking extra fuel ahead of the strike. At least two depots were forced to shut down their operations.

Motorists, remembering last year’s strike, were also stocking up, with lines at some gas stations in the area up to 400 yards long.