FRENCH trade unions yesterday warned the government against using force to dismantle the lorry drivers' roadblocks that are strangling France's roads.
With some 250 roadblocks causing petrol and other shortages throughout France, the drivers' protest went into its 12th day and showed few signs of easing, despite talks which have already resulted in their main demand for retirement at 55 - being accepted.
The only sign of softening was a decision to allow foreign trucks blocked in Calais, most of them British, to cross the Channel to Dover. Some 250 lorries were waiting to cross, but the strikers said an unknown number of French vehicles among them would not be allowed to leave.
After the fourth consecutive session of all night talks this week, Mr Robert Cros, a government appointed mediator, said he was standing down because, he said, his job was done. The Gaullist Transport Minister, Mr Bernard Pons, announced that a package of measures meeting the drivers' demands would soon be ready.
Union leaders, however, called on their members to maintain their protest. Mr Marc Blondel, the head of the Force Ouvriere union and the leader of the strikes against welfare reform that brought France to a virtual standstill for three weeks a year ago, said an employers' offer of an extra 1 per cent pay rise, adding to an early two point offer, was unacceptable".
Mr Louis Viannet, leader of the CGT union federation, said he had information that the government was contemplating the use of force to dismantle roadblocks in the Bordeaux region. He warned that this would be unacceptable. Mr Pons denied any such intention. At the end of a similar two week protest in 1992, the then Socialist government sent in the army to tow lorries with tanks.
"There can be no solution outside negotiation and meeting the drivers' demands," the CGT said in a message addressed to the Prime Minister, Mr Alain Juppe. The one concession yesterday came when drivers blockading Calais finally allowed the hundreds of foreign trucks waiting to cross to Britain to start embarking on ferries to Dover.
But the French drivers, who still refused to allow trucks which arrived from Britain earlier in the week to leave the port, said this was just "a truce" and said they would resume a total blockade of the port once the foreign lorries had gone.
In more than half of mainland France's 95 departments, local authorities have started restricting the sale of petrol. By yesterday, 2,000 of the country's 18,000 petrol stations had dried up completely, four times more than the previous day. A de facto rationing system was introduced in some departments. A typical measure was that taken in the Isere department around Grenoble, where drivers were allowed to buy only £24 of petrol at a time.
In other places, the authorities requisitioned stocks for emergency services. Service station operators in Marseilles asked for police protection because they said irate drivers were becoming threatening.
In some places, factory managers said they would soon start having to lay staff off because they were no longer receiving the materials they needed to continue production. In the Bouches du Rhone department around Marseilles, 13 per cent of companies said they had already suffered losses because of the protest so far.
Since the beginning of this week, France has been waking up to the possibility that it could be in for a Christmas like last year, when three weeks of strikes brought the country to a virtual halt.
Until last weekend, the lorry drivers disrupting traffic all over France had not really made their presence felt, except in places such as Caen, in Normandy, and Bordeaux, where they had really slowed all traffic down. Mainly operating partial roadblocks, allowing through private traffic and emergency vehicles, their principal aim was to stop non striking trucks from using the roads.
But as they started their second week of protests to back demands for more pay, early retirement and other improvements in their working conditions, the drivers began concentrating on the nation's fuel supplies. They blocked off one of the main Paris refineries, at Grigny, south of the capital, on Tuesday with just two empty tanker lorries.
Although police arrived quickly and checked the drivers' identity, they made no effort to remove the vehicles. By yesterday, half of France's 95 departments said fuel shortages were becoming a serious problem.
Exactly a year ago, protesting against proposed welfare and health service reform and against a restructuring plan for the state SNCF railways, two of France's three main union federations caused pre Christmas havoc.
The 1996 version of industrial unrest differs greatly in that, this time, the lorry drivers have yet to make a serious attempt to disrupt traffic in the Paris region; meaning that the country's most influential citizens are not personally touched by the chaos so far.
Last year, Paris was the focus of the strikes and demonstrations, ensuring that the disruption touched the ruling classes and gained a maximum of media attention both at home and abroad. This year, the strikes are different because they pit workers against bosses in the private sector.
This year, as last year, opinion polls show that more than two thirds of the French back the strikers.
The police have expressed sympathy for the drivers, perhaps explaining their reluctance to end the blockades.
In Normandy, two drivers were badly hurt when a farmer tried to crash through a roadblock in a farm vehicle. A French driver beat a German colleague over the head with an iron bar when he tried to force his way out. The German, taken to hospital on Tuesday, was still fighting for his life yesterday. His assailant has been arrested and charged.