French commuters struggled to work yesterday after transport workers went on strike over plans to scrap their pension privileges, the biggest test so far for President Nicolas Sarkozy's ability to push through reforms.

Unions called the 24-hour strike from late on Wednesday in an attempt to force concessions from the government, which plans to scrap privileges that allow a minority of public sector workers to retire earlier than their peers.

The strike was the first major showdown between Sarkozy, who was elected in May with a strong mandate for change, and powerful unions who have in the past forced the government to back down from reform plans.

The SNCF state rail network said only a fraction of trains would run, while bus and tram services faced disruption in 27 major cities over the pensions row, and a law forcing transport staff to provide a minimum service during strikes from January.

"Traffic will be very reduced today with less than five percent of trains running compared with a normal day," said Guillaume Pepy, the SNCF's executive director general.

Rail stations normally packed with early morning commuters were almost deserted apart from a few stranded passengers.

Radio stations reported heavy traffic on the roads coming into Paris.

A reduced service operated in the capital on most metro lines and fewer than one in 10 buses were running but in Lyon, France's second city, local transport was relatively little affected.

Striking gas and power utility staff, who would also be subject to the new pension rules, cut about 9.4 percent of production capacity at EDF nuclear plants from Wednesday night.

The government wants to put employees paying into the so-called "special regime" pension schemes on an equal footing with civil servants and private sector workers, increasing their contribution period from 37.5 years to 40 years.

The special funds were introduced after World War II, mainly for workers in physically demanding jobs, but they are running deficits that will cost the taxpayer an estimated $7 billion this year.

Sarkozy vowed to phase out the special regimes during his election campaign this year and has offered talks on how best to do that while refusing to back down on the principle.

"Is it for financial or political reasons that they want to smash the railway workers regime and the other special regimes," said Remy Aufrere, secretary general of the FO union's rail staff section.

Aufrere called on the government to increase pensions to compensate for the longer contribution period and stiffer penalties for those retiring without full contributions.

Lengthy protests mortally wounded a conservative government 12 years ago which was forced into a humiliating climbdown over similar pension reforms.

All sides have played down the 1995 parallel. An Ifop poll on Wednesday showed 82 percent of people backed reform of the "special regimes", and 61 percent opposed the strike.

Agencies

(China Daily 10/19/2007 page12)