Trucks Block Borders Over Workweek Cut

In the latest instance of employer discontent over France’s controversial 35-hour workweek, trucking companies used their rigs to block highways, tunnels and toll plazas at the country’s borders Tuesday, immobilizing foreign trucks by the thousands and backing up traffic for miles.

Seventy roadblocks were set up near the frontiers with Spain, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland as the protest wore into its second disruptive day. The Portuguese national road transport association said all of its 5,000 trucks crossing the Pyrenees to make pickups or deliveries in other European countries could be stranded by day’s end.

Some of France’s European partners reacted with disgust at the action, accusing authorities in Paris of not doing enough to keep the roads open to commercial traffic.

The French government “hasn’t done very much” to get traffic moving again, Loyala de Palacio, the European Union executive in charge of transportation, charged in an interview with a Spanish radio station. If the conflict is not resolved and the roads reopened, France could be hit with big fines, she warned.

Reduction of France’s legal workweek from 39 to 35 hours, which is to go into effect for companies with 20 or more employees Feb. 1, and next year for the rest, is a key measure in the efforts of the Socialist-led government to reduce double-digit unemployment. In an era of increasing globalization, many French business and industrial leaders complain that the law hamstrings their ability to compete.

Trucking company owners protest that the new law will hurt their ability to win contracts from non-French rivals whose drivers can work longer hours.

In general, the protesters were letting cars and other private vehicles through the roadblocks, albeit in many cases after long delays. In some locations, including points along the Swiss border, trucks were being stopped in both directions.

“It’s going from bad to worse--trucks are stretching back 20 miles from here,” Irish trucker Thomas Fitzsimmons told Associated Press on the road leading to the Frejus tunnel that links France and Italy via the Alps. “It is bitterly cold, and we do not have the sort of warm clothing you need for sustained freezing temperatures.”

In the northern Alps alone, 1,500 trucks were blocked, news reports said. And at a highway toll plaza in the southern Atlantic coast city of Biarritz, 1,000 trucks were tied up Tuesday morning.

Jonathan Todd, an EU spokesman in Brussels, said the trade bloc’s executive authorities could issue a formal demand to the French to take action to ensure the free circulation of merchandise, an obligation France has to its 14 partners in the European Union. France would then have five days to reply or face court action and eventual fines.

Already, the French government has proposed allowing long-distance drivers to work up to 56 hours a week, as long as they work no more than 220 hours per month. In line with a proposed EU-wide directive, the companies want commercial drivers of all sorts to be able to work up to 60 hours a week, as long as the time worked over a four-month period does not exceed 48 hours weekly on average.