Travel across France threatens to be difficult Tuesday as taxi drivers and air traffic controllers join a strike called by three major unions representing France’s 5 million civil servants, reports Bloomberg.
France’s civil aviation authority asked airlines to cut their flights by 20 percent Tuesday as two unions representing air traffic controllers called for a 24-hour strike ending Wednesday morning to demand higher pay and pensions.
Air France says it will guarantee all long-haul flights tomorrow as well as 80 percent of short- and medium-haul flights, though it warned that last minute cancellations can’t be excluded.
It’s offering customers with tickets to fly tomorrow to postpone for later this week without cost. Lufthansa is canceling 10 flights between Germany and France
tomorrow.
Taxis plan to clog access to airports near Paris, Toulouse, Marseille and Bordeaux, as well as at Porte Maillot on the western edge of the capital, as part of a continued protest against the proliferation of car services such as Uber. CGT Taxis issued a statement accusing the government of trying to “kill the profession with savage deregulation.” The union says 60,000 taxi jobs are at risk.
A taxi strike last June 25 descended into violence as some Uber drivers were beaten and their cars burned.