PARIS – France's massive strikes are costing the national economy up to euro400 million ($557 million) each day, the French finance minister said Monday as workers continued to block trash incinerators to protest a plan to raise the retirement age to 62.
Rotting piles of garbage — now at nearly 9,000 tons — are becoming a health hazard in the Mediterranean city of Marseille, which has been hit hard on land and at sea. Striking dockers at France's largest port are intermittently blocking ships trying to unload fuel there.
Twelve striking refineries have been shut down for nearly two weeks, but the protest movement appeared to weaken Monday after workers at three refineries voted to end their walkout. The French oil refineries' body, UFIP, said all the country's oil depots had also been unblocked.
The oil worker's return to work is likely to ease the ongoing gasoline shortages, which on Monday still had about one in four gas stations in France shuttered.
Wasn't it just a couple of years ago that the left in this country said they wanted us to be more like France? Well there is a big reason that we are not France and it is in the news now. Why don't I hear any politicians saying we should have this going on here? I guess that wasn't such a great idea after all.
