WillyT Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Oct-16-10 02:44 PM
Original message
Well... At Least The French Know How To Do It...
We should have such courage...
Protesters hit streets anew in France over pension reform
Country's fuel supplies run low as refinery workers join strike
By ELAINE GANLEY
The Associated Press - MSNBC
updated 23 minutes ago
A member of the French communist party, wearing a T-shirt of
legendary guerrilla Ernesto "Che" Guevara, demonstrates over
pension reforms in Nice, southeastern France, on Saturday.
<snip>
PARIS — Scattered fuel shortages rattled drivers and businesses across France on Saturday, as tens of thousands marched for the fifth time in a month to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age to 62.
Frequent strikes in the last few weeks have hobbled French trains and airports, closed schools and docks, and left garbage piling up in the southern port of Marseille.
But now the airline industry is getting worried, after all of France's 12 fuel-producing refineries went on strike and many depots were being blocked by protesters. Police were called in to force three crucial fuel depots to reopen Friday, including one outside Marseille.
The Civil Aviation authority sent out an advisory Friday night to airlines requiring short- and medium-haul flights to Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport — one of Europe's key hubs — to arrive with enough fuel to get home, spokesman Eric Heraud said.
"They must come with a maximum capacity in their fuel tanks," Heraud said by telephone. "Obviously, these instructions apply only to short- and medium-haul flights" of less than four or five hours because trans-Atlantic flights cannot "double carry" fuel.
As fearful drivers headed to the pumps, Finance Minister Christine Lagarde urged the nation not to panic.
"Today, there is no reason, no reason ... to panic," she told BFM-TV on Saturday, noting that only 230 of the country's 13,000 gas stations were out of fuel. "There are weeks of reserve."
The Ecology Ministry, however, said fuel stocks at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport — one of Europe's key hubs — were good only until Tuesday and the fuel pipeline to the airport was working only intermittently.
<snip>
More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39698976/ns/world_news-euro... /
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9331403Yep you have to hand it to the French they sure know how to stand there with open hands waiting for them to be filled.
BrklynLiberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Oct-16-10 02:46 PM
Response to Original message
1. yep. Labor in Europe sure knows how to make its voice be heard... Updated at 2:52 PM
Edited on Sat Oct-16-10 02:49 PM by BrklynLiberal
and this is about changing retirement age from 60 to 62!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The irony. The ultimate irony....if that were the issue here in the US, there would not be a peep heard...from anyone.
There are no headlines about protests talk of changing SS age from 65 to 70!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The introduction of a Soylent Green policy would not bring out protesters in the US like raising the retirement age from 60 to 62 does in Europe.
The ultimate irony is the fact that the govt handing out retirement is what caused this problem is lost on the DUmmies. When you depend on someone else for your retirement funding you are forced to play by their rules. If you can manage your own retirement you get to retire when you want.
Lasher Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Oct-16-10 03:01 PM
Response to Original message
6. I'm cheering them on.
I wish the US unions could play a broader role in protecting us against reduction of our pensions and social services.
I wish you people would play a broader role in taking care of yourselves.
Curmudgeoness Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Oct-16-10 08:15 PM
Response to Reply #35
36. Give them an inch, they take a hundred miles. nt
That explains you guys. Give you one handout then you demand ten more. Then still bitch that someone has more than you do.
