French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Tuesday strongly denounced the physical attack by protesting Air France employees upon the airline’s Human Resources director Xavier Broseta and long-haul flight manager Pierre Plissonier during a staff meeting on Monday morning.
Broseta had his shirt ripped off his back and Plissonier had his shirt and jacket left in tatters before security guards helped the two men flee the meeting at the company’s headquarters at Charles-de-Gaulle airport and reach safety by climbing over a nearby high fence. Dramatic pictures show the bare-chested pair clearly shocked.
Valls called for the “heavy” punishment of those responsible. “When Air France is in shock, it’s all of France that is in shock,” said Valls who met with members of the airline’s management on Tuesday afternoon, including with Broseta.
The executives were attacked by a small group of staff protesting the company’s plan to axe 2,900 jobs between now and 2017. The plan was detailed at the staff meeting, when it was formally announced that the company will shed 1,700 ground staff, 900 stewards and hostesses, and 300 pilots. As part of the plan, 10% of the airline’s long-haul flights, of which currently only half return a profit, will also be cut, while 14 aircraft will be removed from the company fleet.
This so-called ‘Plan B’ was drawn up after the airline’s pilots rejected an initial management proposal to increase working hours. Under ‘Plan B’, Air France aims to make 80% of its long-haul flights profitable by 2017, with a yearly operating profit by then of 740 million euros.
The restructuring programme is the latest of a series that began after the company clocked up its first ever annual operating losses in 2008, one year before it merged with Dutch carrier KLM to form the Air France-KLM group. According to the company’s figures, 12,400 jobs have been shed by Air France since 2009, while over the past three years it has cut 30% of its short- and medium-haul flights.
The violence on Monday met with condemnation from every trades union representing Air France staff. Ronald Noirot, general secretary of the airline’s largest union, the CGC-CFE, said the events also served to widen what he called the “split” among the airline’s staff unions. For many union officials also believe the events were a reflection of Air France management’s strategy of deepening the divisions between the unions, notably between those representing the company’s pilots – who were not involved in the attack - and others representing the cabin and ground staff.
Until recently, the airline’s management maintained good relations with the pilots and their powerful union, the SNPL. But over the past few years the company has entered into open conflict with its pilots, who have been projected as a wealthy elite with no consideration for the financial difficulties facing the airline. The chairman and CEO of the Air France-KLM group, Alexandre de Juniac, has made clear that the success of a wider, long-term restructuring plan, called ‘Perform 2020’, depends upon the SNPL’s agreement to the changes.
“We agree to making efforts, but such a drop in salaries is not acceptable,” said Véronique Damon, general secretary of the SNPL branch at Air France.
De Juniac has received open support in his confrontation with the pilots from the government, with Prime Minister Emmanuel Valls calling for pilots to show “responsibility” by agreeing to a deal that would save the company, of which the French state owns a 16% share.
On Sunday, on the eve of the staff meeting, finance minister Michel Sapin warned that “when dialogue is obstructed by a minority over purely individual and corporatist visions, yes that can place the whole [of the company] in danger”. Meanwhile, the government’s spokesman, agriculture minister Stéphane Le Foll, called on Monday for the pilots’ unions and management to resume negotiations. “I call on everyone, notably the pilots, to make an effort,” he said. “Of course dialogue must be made possible […] Air France needs to give itself the means to address a number of questions that are posed. I consider that this company is an image of France. The means must be found to preserve it.”
Following Monday’s incidents, the SNPL’s general secretary, Véronique Damon, condemned the violence. “To attack the managers of the company is not the solution,” she said. “But it must also be said that the management has done everything to increase the tension, by unilaterally forcing negotiations and playing upon divisions. Whereas, contrary to last year, and even if it’s not exactly our manner, we have tried this time to create the conditions for an effective cross-union [approach].” Mehdi Kemoune, head of the airline’s CGT union branch, whose members include ground staff, agreed. “The pilots have understood that they could no longer go it alone,” he said. “They were there today with us.”
Speaking at the staff meeting on Monday before the incidents began, the president of the Air France SNPL branch, Philippe Evain preached for unity among the airline’s employees, in contrast to the traditional divisions between the elite group that pilots make up and the rest of the personnel. “The problem for Air France is not that of [just] one category,” he told the assembly. “We have had a gun pointed at our head. The pilots won’t sign the deal, but above all we won’t sign anything at the expense of others.”
Pilots warn Air France is on course for 'slow death'
The union Alter, which represents minority of the airline’s pilots, argued the same. “One can’t weigh on pilots alone the problems of our air network, that’s absurd,” commented one of its officials, Alexandre Rio..
“The big problem is that the media campaign against the pilots has worked very well, but there haven’t been any true negotiations,” said François Pottecher, president of the SNPL branch for Air France’s low-cost arm, Transavia. He described the incidents on Monday as “deplorable”, while adding that he understood the anger among staff. “For me, everything has been done to reach the stage of Plan B, meaning lay-offs. In this context, unity will be difficult to maintain because while the numbers of pilots is relatively incompressible, the numbers of ground staff at Air France in comparison with its competitors is phenomenal. So that’s where it’s going to be toughest.”
Pottecher said the numbers of pilot job losses announced by the airline was “for show”, and that “the aim is to say that no-one, not even the pilots, are excepted and that we’ll have to give in”.
Air France-KLM group chairman and chief executive Alexandre de Juniac on Monday insisted that the door to negotiations was “still open”, while underlining that the restructuring plan was necessary in face of the difficulties facing the company. These centre on the strong competition on its short- and medium-haul flights from low-cost airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet, which the group’s low-cost arm Transavia is still way short of countering. Meanwhile, Air France’s long-haul flights, traditionally considered by the company as making up its brand image, are now suffering from competition from subsidized airlines from the Gulf states, notably Emirates and Qatar Airways.
The resulting plan by Air France to reduce its long-haul flights was described by SNPL general secretary Véronique Damon as “the slow death of Air France”, adding that the company was “breaking up the whole network”. The CGT union branch leader Mehdi Kemoune insisted that the company needed a “proper industrial strategy”.
A source well informed of the situation within Air France, who spoke on condition his name was withheld, told Mediapart: “The union leaders don’t want to lose their advantages, that’s clear. But the management is refusing to think globally. All they propose is a low-cost operation which is reached via a reduction in staff numbers, but they’ll never win at that game.”
The present scaling down follows previous cuts of thousands of jobs over the past ten years, reached through voluntary redundancies and the non-renewal of posts after staff retirements.
The unions also blame the government for the current problems facing the airline. “In short, the government strategy is [to sacrifice] Air France for Rafale [fighter jets],” said Alter pilots’ union leader Alexandre Rio. “The Emirates bosses are given honours, frigates and Rafales are sold to the Gulf states, and Airbuses to EasyJet. Inevitably, we get the impression of not being supported.”
The unions complain about the granting of extra flights to Gulf state airlines from Paris Charles-de-Gaulle airport, Air France’s base, while the airport’s taxes on companies have been raised despite its already high profits. “There is a rise [in taxes] here while in Amsterdam, the second hub for Air France-KLM, taxes have fallen by 7%, it’s incomprehensible,” commented Véronique Damon.
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- This article is compiled from two Mediapart reports published in French and which can be found here and here.
English version by Graham Tearse