Air France workers rip shirts from executives after airline cuts 2,900 jobs
This happened on Monday, Oct. 5, outside Paris. English report: UK Guardian; Repubblica (Italy), País (Spain), & FT screenshots: Le Monde. Video at Guardian link:
Staff storm board meeting at Charles de Gaulle airport and force executives to flee, with one clambering over fence half-naked
Striking staff at Air France have taken demonstrating their anger with direct action to a shocking new level. Approximately 100 workers forced their way into a meeting of the airline’s senior management and ripped the shirts from the backs of the executives.
The airline filed a criminal complaint after the employees stormed its headquarters, near Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, in what was condemned as a “scandalous” outbreak of violence.
Photographs showed one ashen-faced director being led through a baying crowd, his clothes torn to shreds. In another picture, the deputy head of human resources, Xavier Broseta, left bare-chested after workers ripped off his shirt and jacket, is photographed being pushed to safety over a fence.
Tensions between management and workers at France’s loss-making flagship carrier had been building over the weekend in the runup to a meeting aimed at finalising a controversial “restructuring plan” involving 2,900 redundancies between now and 2017. The proposed job losses involve 1,700 ground staff, 900 cabin crew and 300 pilots.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/05/air-france-workers-storm-meeting-protest-executives-job-losses-paris
http://www.lemonde.fr/entreprises/article/2015/10/06/l-agression-de-cadres-d-air-france-fait-la-une-de-la-presse-internationale_4783465_1656994.html
