PARIS/MARSEILLE, Oct. 4 (Reuters) - The head of France's CGT rail workers' union raised the spectre of rolling strikes over pension reform and dockers continued to block France's largest oil terminal on Monday.
National union chiefs met to discuss strategy after a fourth wave of nationwide street marches but the main flashpoint ahead of a new wave of previously agreed protests and strikes on Oct. 12 was the southern coast near the city of Marseille.
About 40 ships, mostly oil tankers, were stuck in the waters off the Fos-Lavera oil terminal on France’s Mediterranean coast, and union officials at refineries in the area said they could call strikes too, compounding the risk of local fuel shortages.
"There are stocks for three weeks in normal times. If people lay siege to petrol stations, that can all go in a week," said Jean-Robert Hoareau, CGT union official at the LyondellBasell refinery. The nearby island of Corsica, totally dependent on supplies from the Marseille area, was already running low on fuel.
Transport minister Dominique Busereau ruled out the risk of wider fuel shortages.
Fos-Lavera is the world’s third-largest oil port behind Houston and Rotterdam. Among the ships jammed by the eighth day of the strike were 14 crude tankers and 13 refined product vessels.
Freight traffic in and out of the Marseille port had resumed after a 72-hour stoppage.
The trouble there was sparked by government plans for port management changes and also a pension reform bill that would raise the retirement age in France to 62 from 60.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed not to back down on the pension plans, the flagship reform of his centre-right government.
RESTIVE RAILWAYS
In a sign of rising tensions, the head of the CGT union within the SNCF state railways accused the government of contempt for protesters which he said could trigger an escalation.
"If the government continues to treat millions of protestors with contempt and doesn’t listen, then we have to speak louder, raise the tone," said Didier Le Reste.
"Rolling work stoppages must be decided," he said, referring to strikes that are not limited in time as the nationwide protests of the past weeks have been.
Much the same message came from a representative of another union at the railways, the Fgaac-CFDT.
"We’ve tried everything, with protests, strikes, Saturday’s street marches. We wanted to avoid a rolling strike but it has to be said now that we’ve not been heard," he said.
Unions at the railways were meeting on Monday and scheduled to meet again on Wednesday to discuss tactics. They are expected to wait until Wednesday before signalling their strategy.
The leaders of the national union confederations, meeting on Monday, have mostly avoided threatening rolling strikes but they are increasingly talking up the risk of more substantial protests.
"If the government confirms its intransigence, it will hardly be surprising if the mobilisation changes form," Bernard Thibault, national leader of the CGT union said at the weekend.
Unions say 2.9 million people took part in street protests on Saturday, much like a protest on Sept. 23. Police put the number at 900,000, marginally lower than their count of close to one million on Sept. 23.
The number remains significant by either count and has clearly heartened the unions even if many analysts believe the protest movement will not force Sarkozy into retreat.
