A French judge postponed a trial Friday against Air France workers accused of tearing the shirts off airline executives in a violent protest, apparently fearing it could enflame tensions amid nationwide strikes over France's labor system, reports ABC News.
The shirt-ripping incident last October, caught on camera and viewed worldwide, came to epitomize the extreme end of antagonistic French labor relations. It came at a meeting where the executives announced further job cuts after years of belt-tightening at the airline, prompting a rampage by a small group of union members.
Air France lawyers decried the delay in the trial, arguing that the exceptional violence should be punished as soon as possible, and not linked to the larger protest movement currently under way.
Defense lawyers argued the case was too important and complex for a single day of proceedings. The trial will resume over two days in September.