22nd May, 2018
Flights to and from French airports were disrupted on Tuesday as air-traffic controllers joined a strike called by civil service unions.
Civil aviation authorities confirmed that they had advised airlines to cancel 20 per cent of all flights.
Air France said passengers should check the status of their flight online, but warned that there could also be last-minute delays and cancellations.
Nine trade union federations have called on public servants to go out on strike against the policies of President Emmanuel Macron’s government.
Macron froze civil service pay in 2018 and plans to reduce the 5.45-million-strong public sector workforce by 120,000 over his five-year term.
The government also plans to rely more on contract staff instead of civil servants, who are recruited for a lifelong career.
The strike, the third of such day of action since October, comes as railway workers pursue a rolling strike that hit services in early April in protest at Macron’s reform plans for that sector.
A separate series of one and two-day strikes for a pay rise to make up for years of pay freezes has disrupted Air France services since February.
Chief Executive, Jean-Marc Janaillac, resigned earlier this month after staff rejected what he said was a final pay offer.
So far, strikes and protests have failed to shake Macron’s resolve to liberalise the French economy.
In September, he signed business-friendly reforms to the labour code into law in spite opposition from trade unions and his hard left political rivals.