French dockers march through the streets of Marseilles. Dockers at the southern French port of Marseille continued their long tradition of militancy and beat back recent attempts to privatize their jobs.
They went on strike March 14 when the government-owned company Gaz de France would not come to terms on staffing issues. Their union, the Confédération Générale du Travail, demanded that union workers would get the jobs at a new natural gas terminal at the port. Gaz de France, which will soon be privatized, wanted to use its own workers to discharge liquefied natural gas at its new terminal for what it called “safety and security” reasons. The union saw this as a foot-in-the-door for possible further job losses.
The French petroleum industry slowed down immediately when workers at Marseille’s Fos-Lavera terminals, the world’s third largest oil products hub, refused to discharge oil and gas. That plant handles more than 64 million metric tons of crude oil each year.
Soon 60 ships anchored in the harbor or cruised off the coast. The French business daily Les Echos reported government officials had met with the company and union to mediate a settlement. Meanwhile refineries in France, Switzerland and Germany were running out of oil. Far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen criticized the government as “powerless” to stop the strike at the Marseille port, calling the strike “illegal and illegitimate.” Newspaper editorials speculated that the French government, which owns 70 percent of Gaz de France, did not want to go into an election April 22 with the issues of privatization, union busting and a gas shortage all over the media. The union and company met for 10 hours March 29 and a settlement was hammered out the following day. CGT workers would get the jobs.
By Saturday, March 31 the workers had what they wanted and voted to immediately go back to work.
—Tom Price 
