Louvre, Versailles face closure by striking French workers

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j_7Hu59ly2kk_Ej3bTdpSMqtVA3A

By Rory Mulholland (AFP) – 2 days ago

PARIS — The Louvre, the world?s most visited museum, the chateau of Versailles and a host of other top French tourist sites could shut next week due to strike action over planned job cuts, unions warned Friday.

A strike has already shut down the landmark Pompidou modern art centre, and unions are now calling for workers in museums, monuments and cultural sites nationwide to down tools from next Wednesday.

Strikers want President Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing government to scrap plans to slash state payrolls by replacing only one out of every two retiring civil servants and reducing cultural subsidies.

Unions say museums -- which draw in millions of French and foreign visitors every year and can expect to be busy as the Christmas shopping season brings day trippers to the capital -- will be crippled by the cuts.

"There will be staff meetings in every establishment on December 2 ... and the personnel will decide whether or not to go on strike," Kamal Hesni of the CFDT union told AFP.

"All the major establishments are concerned -- Versailles, the Louvre, the national library, the Pantheon, Notre Dame, the ramparts of Carcassonne, Mont Saint Michel," he said, adding that the Eiffel Tower would not be affected.

FULL story and photo at link.

[juajen]

1. Go unions. Wish we had full union strength in the US back to its former glory. NT