March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Hundreds of thousands of people marched in cities across France after unions called for a second general strike in two months to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy’s “inadequate” response to the economic slump.
Civil servants and employees from the private sector demonstrated in cities from Paris and Toulouse to Marseille. France’s eight main unions say Sarkozy, who offered 2.6 billion euros ($3.5 billion) in tax cuts and aid to low-paid workers and the unemployed after a similar protest on Jan. 29, isn’t doing enough to counter rising unemployment and boost incomes.
Finance Minister Christine Lagarde expects the economy to shrink 1.5 percent this year, after French companies shed the most jobs in 40 years in the fourth quarter and manufacturing slumped amid the worst recession since World War II. The government, which predicts its budget deficit will swell this year to 5.6 percent of gross domestic product, has said it’s not ready to spend more.
If the government says “‘we won’t change anything,’ there will be other protests,” Bernard Thibault, general secretary of the Confederation Generale du Travail, the country’s second- largest union, told reporters. “It should come as no surprise if the climate gets tougher.”
Protestors marched in the Mediterranean port city of Marseille and in Lyon earlier in the day, with the main demonstration taking place in Paris in the afternoon. The police put the number of protesters in Paris at 85,000, more than in January. The CGT union says 350,000 are taking part.
Minimum Service
The mounting unrest comes amid job cuts and plant closures at companies including Sony France and Continental AG. While France has a history of street protests, the global financial crisis has sparked similar demonstrations and unrest in countries from China and Greece to Iceland.
A law pushed through by Sarkozy in August 2007 that requires “minimum service” to be guaranteed by workers and companies, particularly in public transport, has limited somewhat the impact of the strike.
The law has curbed the ability of unions to bring the country to a standstill. In 1995, unions paralyzed France for three weeks as public transport ground to a halt.
The subway and bus service in Paris ran at close to normal today. According to Agence France-Presse, the second-largest Paris subway union, UNSA, has called on members not to strike in order to ensure maximum attendance at today’s protest march.
Popular Strike
About 78 percent of the French people said the strike today is “justified,” according to a poll by Ifop for Paris Match magazine. That compares with 75 percent for the January protest.
Public schools were closed or operated with skeleton staff. About 20 percent of civil servants and postal workers participated in the work stoppage. At France Telecom SA, the number was 25 percent. Unions for teachers, hospital workers and other civil servants say Sarkozy’s measures since a Feb. 18 meeting with unions, including tax cuts and benefits for jobseekers and low-waged workers, don’t go far enough.
“The crisis needs a response on a totally different scale,” the unions said in a statement. “The increase in job cuts, the use of temporary layoffs contribute to amplifying the recession and weigh heavily on purchasing power.”
The government says the plans it has unveiled will rekindle the economy and limit job losses.
“The president has defined a response that is coherent and complete,” Budget Minister Eric Woerth told parliament yesterday.
Planes and Trains
Air France-KLM Group said it’s operating all its long-haul flights and “nearly all” of its short- and medium-haul flights out of the Charles de Gaulle airport, while canceling 30 percent of its flights at the Orly airport.
Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer Francais, or SNCF, France’s national railway, said on its Web site at 11:41 a.m. local time today that disruption on its domestic high-speed lines ranged from zero to 80 percent. Up to 70 percent of the Corail domestic trains were canceled, it said.
Eurostar and Thalys services to London and Brussels were running normally, SNCF said. Most overnight domestic and international trains were canceled.
RATP, the Paris transport authority, said the city’s subway and bus service was close to normal. The service on the RER A regional train line was normal, while on RER B, one in three trains is running, it said.
Marseille transport operated normally, while in Lyon a quarter of the metro lines and two-thirds of tramways were canceled. In Strasbourg, three in five tramways were running.
Energy, Refineries
EDF workers cut power output by as much as 10,000 megawatts, or 16 percent of the country’s installed capacity, Marie-Helene Gourdin, head of power and gas at the Confederation Francaise du Travail, or CFDT union, said today by telephone.
A strike at Total SA’s refineries in France cut production and disrupted deliveries of oil products, according to a union official. The union action comes after Europe’s third-largest oil company announced this month a plan to cut 555 refining and petrochemicals jobs in France.
“There are sites where output has dropped and products aren’t being shipped out,” Charles Foulard of the CGT at Total, said in a telephone interview.
Unions have called on strikers to lower output at French nuclear reactors to a level that would be “enough to curb EDF’s ability to export electricity and maybe even force it to import power,” said Gourdin.
French ports, including the largest at Marseille and Le Havre, halted operations last night in the run-up to the 24-hour action, according to workers’ unions and harbor authorities.
To contact the reporters on this story: Sandrine Rastello in Paris at srastello@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Fraher at jfraher@bloomberg.net
France's two largest trade unions have called for a general strike on Thursday.

The Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (French Democratic Confederation of Labour) and the Confédération générale du travail (General Confederation of Labour), along with six other labour groups, have called upon French workers to stop work on January 29 and take to the streets to protest the handling of the economic downturn by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007.

The strike call is aimed at both the private and the public sectors. It would affect public services like hospitals, schools, mail, Air France, rail company SNCF and national broadcasting, as well as private sectors such as banks, supermarkets and the stock exchange. A poll found 70% of the French public sympathise with or are in support of the action.

The unions fear job losses and wage cuts as France tips into recession following the credit crunch. They are against the President's plans to loosen restrictions on the length of the working week, which currently stands at a legal maximum of 35 hours, and on Sunday trading. The unions oppose allowing 30,000 public sector jobs to go by natural wastage. The European Union expects the unemployment rate in France to reach 10.6% next year.

In the National Assembly, the opposition Socialists have proposed a vote of no confidence in Sarkozy's right-of-centre government. The Assembly will debate the motion today, however Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement party has a majority in the Assembly so he is expected to win.

Meanwhile, in neighbouring Germany, the national railway network is expected to be disrupted after the two main rail unions, Transnet and the GDBA, called for strike action against Deutsche Bahn as part of a campaign for greater flexibility in worknig and a 10% pay increase. Deutsche Bahn has offered 1%.