Mass strike over French job cuts
Workers protest against attempt to cut nearly 50,000 public sector positions.
Hospital workers, customs and tax officials and government employees and meteorologists have also joined in the strike.
Jean-Marc Cannon, head of the CGT union for state employees, called on Sarkozy’s government to “consider the full measure of what is going on”.
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Sarkozy campaigned for the presidency last year on a plan to trim down the civil service as a cost-cutting measure and as part of a broader plan to overhaul the state.
Police put the figure in the capital at 18,000.
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Outside of the capital, organisers said about 30,000 people turned out at a similar protest in Marseille, but police put the figure at 7,000.
In Grenoble, clashes broke out during a march of 2,000 students, as youths hurled cans and bottles at riot police who responded with tear gas.
Police blamed the violence on a small group of troublemakers.
There were also big marches in Bordeaux, Toulouse and Lyon.
Xavier Darcos, France’s education minister, reiterated the government’s determination to pare down the education department, the biggest ministry employing about 1.2 million people.
He said the key issue facing French education was not saving jobs, but the challenge of providing better education.
“When you have 1.2 million civil servants, it’s not true that a few thousand jobs here or there is going to settle the problem,” he said.