>From: "Alan Bradley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >>From News Limited (Murdoch) >www.news.com.au > >Strike chokes French business >By CHARLES BREMNER and ADAM SAGE >18may00 > >PARIS: France was a nation bartering for baguettes yesterday as a cash >crunch left people without ready money. > >With a national strike by armoured car vans entering a second week, >automatic teller machines ran out, disrupting trade and forcing millions of >franc-deprived people to resort to credit cards, cheques and their wits to >get through the day. > >More than 60 per cent of cash dispensers were closed, including almost all >on the Cote d'Azur frequented by tourists. > >Plastic and paper, sometimes in the form of IOUs, were taking over from >small change even for the humblest transactions, down to bread and >cigarettes. Newsagents and small shopkeepers complained of lost business as >the unions rejected a new pay offer, scuttling hopes that the strike would >end quickly. > >Making the most of public sympathy, the guards are demanding danger money >and new security measures after a wave of violent assaults by armed >robbers. > >Foreign visitors who were caught in the money drought were joining the long >queues of customers for dwindling cash supplies at banks. > >As shops accumulated dangerous quantities of notes, police mounted special >guards on big stores. > >A passer-by was killed and a policeman wounded in a shootout after a >robbery attempt on Monday on a suburban Paris supermarket. > >Alarmed at the prospect of economic damage, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin >has announced plans for emergency legislation to answer guards' demands for >greater security. The Government also put pressure on the employers to >raise their offer to the guards. > >The strikers were doing their best to heighten the pain of the cash >shortage by picketing branches of the Banque de France around the country, >preventing funds moving in or out of the state clearing houses. > >In the time-honoured style of French strikers, van drivers took over the >toll booths of the main Paris-Strasbourg motorway, allowing cars free >transit. > >The strike was sparked by a wave of violent assaults, in which the >attackers used rocket launchers and other military weapons to blast their >way into armoured cars. Five guards have been killed and more than 15 >wounded over the past year. > >"Before, we at least were given the chance of getting out of the van. Now >the attackers rake us with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers," said Frank >Decourtray, a guard from Cergy, north of Paris. > > __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________
