strikes

French workers are staging an eighth day of industrial action against labour law reforms as nuclear staff aim to reduce plants' power output.

Protests over labour law reform have led to blockades and fall in refinery output that hamper fuel supply and have prompted consumer panic.

Hundreds of taxi drivers took to the streets of Paris, burning car tyres and blocking routes to the capital’s principal airports in major protest.

Airlines told to cancel one in five flights in face of air traffic controllers' strike, while taxi strike adds to travel and commuting woes.

Taxi drivers and air traffic controllers set to join a strike on Tuesday called by three unions representing France’s 5 million civil servants.

Two raids against IS targets in Syria and Iraq were launched from the Charles de Gaulle which arrived in the eastern Mediterranean on Monday.

Decision to announce cuts next week comes after breakdown in talks with pilots’ unions to trim €170 million annually over three years.

The action on December 31st and January 1st over pay and working conditions follow Christmas stoppages that cancelled a quarter of flights.

Ryanair has said 26 flights to and from France will be cancelled while easyJet say a quarter of their flights could be scrapped at start of dispute.

The train strike, starting late Tuesday in protest at a reform of railways structure, coincides with that of taxi drivers against minicab services.

The strikes throughout May are in protest at a law requiring two-day advance notification of strike action and the use of foreign pilots.

At a joint press conference in Paris, US Secretary of State and his French counterpart say countries ready to join attacks number 'double digits'.

French president François Hollande has made clear that France will join the US in military strikes against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, dismissing calls for a vote of approval beforehand in parliament. As illustrated in yesterday’s heated debate in the lower house, the National Assembly, political and public opinion is deeply divided, both over the legality and consequences of the planned strikes. Lénaïg Bredoux and Caroline Donati have talked to senior French officials and experts close to the Syrian dossier, many of whom agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity, to find out why Hollande appears to have been finally wrongfooted amid a rushed and chaotic final denouement to a crisis of more than two years, and which one government advisor says is down to “a series of balls-ups”.

Air France said a strike by cabin staff this weekend will hit about one in five flights, while French rail unions plan a strike for November 8th.