French fishermen angry at high fuel costs kept up a week-long blockade of Atlantic ports Saturday, as striking workers paralysed two other major ports in protest at privatisation plans.
As the fishermen's protest spread to two new harbours on the west coast, a two-day strike by maintenance staff ground the Channel port of Le Havre and Nantes-Saint-Nazaire on the Atlantic, to a halt.
Since April, France's major ports have been disrupted by a string of strikes by workers angry at plans to privatise some heavy machinery operations in line with dockers whose jobs went private in the 1990s.
The container port at Le Havre, France's second-biggest after Marseille, was shut down mid-afternoon Saturday until at least Sunday at 3:00 p.m. (1300 GMT), according to the local CGT union.
The union has called for fresh strikes on Tuesday and Thursday, according to port officials.
In France's eighth-biggest port of La Rochelle, a cordon of fishing boats sealed off access to the commercial harbour La Pallice for a second day, as well as to the historic port and the Minimes marina, used by hundreds of pleasure craft.
Fishermen agreed to allow commercial traffic in and out for three hours a day over the weekend, and were to meet with maritime officials to discuss the situation, according to the local prefecture in La Rochelle.
Around 40 fishermen also disrupted access to the Ile d'Oleron, linked to the mainland near La Rochelle by a bridge, stopping trucks from delivering seafood to the island.
Further down the western seaboard, ships were prevented from docking at the Sables-d'Olonne, where the protest movement broke out on May 10, as well as the pleasure port in Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie.
The protests spread up the coast to the ports of La Turballe and Le Croisic, fishermen voted to go on strike until Wednesday, when Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Michel Barnier has agreed to meet with fishermen's representatives.
The fishermen are demanding action from President Nicolas Sarkozy's government to help them cope with a sharp increase in the price of diesel fuel that has reached 70 euro cents per litre, up from 40 cents in November.
The government announced a three-year 310-million-euro (480 million dollar) aid package to help cushion the blow from fuel costs after several French ports were blocked during protest action in November.
But the fishermen now say the rescue package is not enough, given the continued rise in fuel costs.
Protests spread last week to the Channel port of Cherbourg, while several dozen fishermen trashed the fish department of a supermarket in nearby Dieppe because it was selling imported cod.
The fishermen were angry because they have been barred from catching local cod under quotas imposed by the European Union.
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AFP
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