By IPS Correspondents
PARIS, Sep 3 2007 (IPS)

On a rainy day in an eastern Paris suburb, members of the Confédération générale du travail (CGT), one of France&#39s two largest labour unions, told the assembled press corps at their union hall that the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to "disarm" French workers with a new law aimed at curbing transportation strikes.

Following Sarkozy&#39s strenuous lobbying for the measure, the National Assembly passed a law last month, known in French as the loi sur le service minimum, seeking to ensure a minimum level of service during public transit strikes.

The law, the realisation of a long-held promise by the political right, requires notification by unions of a strike action 48 hours before any walkout, obligates transit providers to notify which trains and buses will be affected, and obliges them to reimburse passengers for any deviation from the announced schedule.

The law produced predictable uproar among employee syndicates.

"This law is hypocritical, because it misleads the French public about its true objectives, useless because it does not answer the concerns of passengers and employees, and dangerous because it attacks the constitutional right to strike," said Paul Fourier, secretary general of the Fédération des transports, a CGT member organisation, as he read from a prepared text.

Fourier went on to say that the law&#39s "true objective" was to abridge the right to strike and to pre-empt the impact of protests against other government policies.

"All labour organisations need to coordinate against this law, particularly those in the public sector," CGT official Graziella Lovera told IPS. "Many sectors could be affected by it."

The unions say Minister for Labour Xavier Bertrand was unresponsive to their concerns before the law was passed, and have accused the Sarkozy government of engaging only in a "pseudo dialogue" with labour leaders.

Having appealed to the Conseil Constitutionnel (Constitutional Council), the country&#39s highest constitutional body, labour unions have also threatened to hold retaliatory walkouts across France.

If the walkouts transpire, they will represent the first serious challenge to the hyperactive Sarkozy, who was elected in May on a platform of bringing change to the political and economic landscape, and has pushed through a serious of contentious measures on education and immigration, as well as labour, during his first 100 days in office.

"The question is what&#39s the optimal strategy to change the way workers unions function," says Francis Kramarz, professor at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. "If Sarkozy can impose the minimum service requirement, he will be able to say to the unions &#39we are able to push you and you can change.&#39 It will be a kind of litmus test."

Large-scale strikes against unpopular government initiatives have become a fact of political life over the years, and have been often successful in forcing reversals or softening of government stances.

In 2005, around 30 percent of public workers went on strike to protest attempts by the government of then president Jacques Chirac to change employment and healthcare laws, in a move that caused massive disruption of transportation services. Chirac subsequently backtracked on the proposals.

During his election campaign Sarkozy vowed to make at least three hours of public transportation available during morning and evening rush hours on strike days, but the final version of the bill allows transit authorities and local government officials to determine their own definitions of "minimum service" during strike actions.

There is a view that Sarkozy&#39s confrontation of France&#39s labour union is merely the first step in what will be his attempt to re-create France into what the government says would be a more prosperous and competitive nation.

Sarkozy has promised to revisit France&#39s 35-hour work week, a move introduced in 1998 by the government of Lionel Jospin, Socialist prime minister who served under the ostensibly conservative Chirac.

Though the National Assembly passed a bill two years ago that allowed employers to offer extra hours to workers at a higher rate of pay, the law has remained on the books, the envy of workers in many other countries, and the bane of employers who say it makes France uncompetitive in a world market where 40-hour work weeks are the norm.

"There is a general view that something should be done about the fact that France is one of the countries with one of the lowest employment rates in Europe," says Gilles Saint-Paul, economist at the Université des Sciences Sociales in the southern city of Toulouse, and a member of Prime Minister Francois Fillon&#39s Conseil d&#39analyse economique. "There is a culture of non-work that has been put into place."

Unemployment in France currently hovers around 9 percent, compared to around 8 percent in neighbouring Spain, and 4 percent and 3 percent in Ireland and Britain.

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